12 in 12 March Update

I bet I am not the only one who is pondering the resolutions, thoughts, plans, hopes, ideas she had last January as she contemplated the richness that is a whole new year. Those of us who like NYRs don't tend to drift away from them till sometime in February or March. I know I can tell you everything that happened in just about every January of my life, since journaling and diary writing have long been a part of my January rush of Improvement. Mays and Junes are a lot foggier.

Last January, as I thought about the numerical significance of twenty twelve I decided to add 12 tiny (I hoped) habits to my daily routine - small additions that I might already be doing sporadically to which I would give special attention. Nothing monumental - not because TheQueen is already regal enough, but because I just wanted - and still want - to tweak the system a little. In January it was easy to stick to my resolution.  I wanted to journal my eating every day - and I did! In February, a month that was a little rocky, I added prayer to my daily routine and while I did not achieve a perfect score, I still made time to consciously pray more days than I forgot to.  I found that if I want to go into that quiet deep place, give thanks, accept love and ask for help every day, I really have to do it first thing in the morning. It's not that I can't carve out the time and quiet space to do that later in the day - I did. I do - and it's an amazingly productive thing to do on a workday afternoon ... to turn the lights off in my office, lower my chair and sit quietly for 5 or 10 minutes. But far too often I become totally distracted by all the rest of the world and forget - something else I did - and do.

Prayer is an important element in my sanity and my productivity. It's also something that I have done since I was fairly young. I had no formal religion till I was a teen and honestly, by that time I'd already created my own plan for spirituality. Happily, it folded into the formal Catholic Girls School practice neatly enough to go undetected. It's difficult for me to write about how important prayer is for me, not because I can't find the words, but because it touches something so very deep inside - and a public blog like this tends to have only so much information in it - and usually it's information about the physical side of life.

It's the very fact that prayer is so very important to me that I decided to give it more attention from now on. Of course I pray when I think I need to. I pray when I think I'm in trouble or when I need help. But that's just the point. It's all about I, I, I. It's all about my ego and its thoughts. It's about thinking and I know, absolutely, that thought is just part of the picture.  I need to honor prayer's rich and sterling qualities when I am not in trouble:  the giving thanks part of prayer; the joyful accepting of a love that is beyond the physical world, though still connected to it; the petitioning for help not just when I can't solve my problems, but asking for it just to live better, more connectedly, more kindly, wiser. It is a way of taking my ego out of things and uniting with something bigger than I am.

Well, what do you know. I did write about prayer - at least a little.

And now here it is March and this time I chose to add something a little more mundane to my daily routine. This month I am concentrating on drinking at least 6 glasses of water every day. It may sound like a silly habit to fold into one's life, but alas - drinking water is something I also forget to do. I like water. I have delicious tap water both at home and at work. I feel better when I drink water. I look better when I drink water. Alas, I also forget to drink water. A day will go by and I'll realize I haven't had any water all day. It's almost scary. But it's something that can be rectified by just scheduling "water breaks".

And now you know the status of my 12 in 12.