I woke up Tuesday thinking, 'my subconscious is my friend.' Actually, I woke up remembering that I’d had a fitful night of sleep, waking several times during the night and realizing each time that I had been dreaming of editing DBSA Boston board meeting minutes. I didn’t remember details of the dreams, just the impression of spending all night puzzling out how to organize the minutes from the raw notes I had typed during the meeting as I struggled to keep up with the lively discussion.
But instead of adding the fact of my dreams to my stress level, I considered them in a different light. All night my subconscious was working on the minutes in many ways: multitasking in a way I could literally only dream of.
My minute-editing career had come to a crisis the week before. Through a series of events, 95% of which were of my own creating, I had to send a 4-month backlog of minutes to the board a few days prior to Monday’s monthly meeting.
Each month for several now I’ve promised myself to edit the minutes within two days of the meeting, while the discussions are fresh in my mind. With my current memory abilities, recall becomes much tougher as time passes.
And each month for several I’ve procrastinated and sent the minutes days before the next meeting rather than days after the previous.
Arising Tuesday morning with the new thought, that my subconscious is my friend, freed me to work on the edits of the Monday meeting with energy and confidence. My subconscious had attended that meeting and was hard at work processing it, not only the actual notes and memories but the emotional baggage and stress I've chosen to carry: all the resistances I have to sitting down and doing the task.
By Tuesday night I had emailed the draft of the minutes to my board members. And now I have 25 days to relax and enjoy and savor the experience of having a dreaded task completely, entirely, and utterly done. (And hope no one sends back any edits, I chuckle to myself.)
Posts
