Excited to offer 4 CEUs (Continuing Education Credits) for any Social Workers, Therapists and Counselors in Washington State for the mini-retreat this weekend! We dive into The Work with a small group from 1:30 – 5:30 on Saturday.
Join me!
I am freshly approved to offer credits, to participants who need or want them, for 2 years, after much paperwork and quite an application process.
Speaking of paperwork! It’s REALLY exciting to get approved for something like this. It feels like a green light for all the work I’ve already done, the workshops completed, the curriculum, the evaluation forms.
It ROCKS!
But sometimes the papers, getting everything you’ve done ON PAPER…Oi Vey. It can feel like a daunting task.
Mortgages, loan applications, college essays, school transcripts, quit claim deeds, taxes, medical notes, official letters….perhaps even doing The Work?
If you’re bored even hearing about paperwork….well, you are not alone.
Paperwork and formal applications and the like are huge forms of stress, boredom, irritation and even despair for many people.
When I first looked at the list of what was necessary to qualify and apply for offering workshop CEU credit here in my state, I took a heavy sigh…but then came “I can do it”.
Grades, evaluations, checking off boxes. Piles of documentation.
It could drive you mad, if you have certain stressful thoughts about it like these:
- there are so many steps, it will take me FOREVER to finish them
- this is tedious
- I can’t explain it well enough
- I don’t have the materials, the documents, the files, the information I need
- I’ll have to hunt through cabinets, I don’t know where stuff is
- it’s too hard
- I can take a shortcut
- I can’t
But I have found that my life, honestly, has gotten a hundred times more efficient in this kind of paperworky administrative-ish arena as I’ve questioned OTHER stressful beliefs about people, safety, money, friendship, love, death, and making a living.
That thing you need to turn in? You know, those taxes? Or that school you’ve wanted to apply for? Or that scholarship application? Or that certificate you need? That letter you’d like to write?
You can do it.
It seems like this type of area isn’t really one for questioning your thoughts sometimes. It’s the mundane paper trail of life.
Yet, once all the stuff is put on paper…you go through a gate to the next thing. Action might happen.
Your mind might feel freed up. Something is handled.
David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, talks in a wonderful way about the mind and how we try to work with it, in this world of organizing and work and business and tasks of the day-to-day life. He likens paperwork and taking care of stuff as a spiritual path, really.
David said “Mind Like Water”. Even with tasks we’re supposed to do.
Especially with tasks we’re supposed to do!!
When I truly see what it’s like to be without the stress of believing I can’t do something, I can’t find something, I don’t have the right materials or information….when I feel what its like to NOT HAVE something “done” as stressful…
….then I notice I take one step at a time. I keep going.
It just wells up out of me to move, to fill out the form. Send it. Finish it. Look at it.
This is true with The Work itself. You have to write your thoughts down, to really get into them and remember what you’re doing. At least that always seems to be the case for me, so far.
Now, I see the turnarounds as so true or truer:
- there are many steps and this is a great and wonderful thing, it will be fun to take them all and look back at this process
- this is not tedious, its worthwhile
- I can explain it well enough
- If I don’t have what I need, I can figure out how to get it, I can ask for help
- Hunting through cabinets is fun, is easy…it’s just looking
- it’s easy
- no shortcut is necessary (the long way might be shorter)
- I can
Even in this mundane topic of paperwork and following directions and filling things out….there is beauty.
“When you have names and forms, know that they are provisional. When you have institutions, know where their functions should end. Knowing when to stop, you can avoid any danger. All things end in the Tao as rivers flow into the sea.”~Tao Te Ching #32
Even paperwork ends in the Tao. Relaxed. Open to it, not fighting. Accepting. One step, then the next.
Welcome paper. Do The Work on paper. Go slower.
I’m breathing more slowly now.
Much love, Grace
P.S. Only a few spots left. Come on up to the little cottage and do The Work this weekend. Only 4 hours (and 4 CEUs if you need them) for learning, practicing, and USING PAPER to question your thinking. You might have a break through!