Inventory

Recently I’ve re-engaged in the practice of writing an inventory on paper every day.  I used to do it at night as a reflective practice, then let it go and resorted back to my daily love affair with journaling.  It’s easy for me to chart my thoughts, my feelings and my interpretation of said thoughts and feelings.  While this is often therapeutic, it doesn’t seem to hold the same value as a more outlined inventory does. 

What is an inventory?  I used to think it was a charting of what was wrong with me and which things I needed to work on.  I used to think it was a taking stock of liabilities and seemed to always neglect the also necessary taking stock of assets.  Think of a store inventory: what do we have, and what do we need?  When applied as simply, it is easier for me to outline “what do I have, and what do I need?” and focus my efforts equally instead of favorably in the negative as my mind tends to do.  There is as much great about me and growing, as there is needing work on and stumbling.  It’s easy to forget, especially if it’s not going down on paper.

Whenever I suggest that somebody try something, I figure it’s wisest to implement the suggestion myself if I’m not already doing it.  And that’s how this happened: I gave someone the suggestion to write their shit down and start to climb out of the hole they’ve placed themselves mentally, and figured it wouldn’t hurt me to do it too. But instead of sitting down at night and going down a list of gratitude, what I did well, what I could do better, etc. I started keeping a tally of it throughout my day in real time.  I whip out my iPhone and use the notes tab and capture the experience while I am having it.

My results?  Are staggering.  In days I am not thinking about myself as much.  I am not condemning myself for things I didn’t do or things I think I should’ve done better.  I am not going straight into my bathroom after I wake up and staring at my stomach.  I am not griping over the food I ate or the food I want to eat.  I am not twisting and turning and wondering what I look like to the rest of the world.  I am not staying stuck on the resentments that pop up and leave as quick as they pop because I am charting my feelings as they appear.  Writing these things down is enabling me to observe, and not to attach.  Taking stock of my person instead of my physical pieces and feelings is giving me an objective view of myself.  It is giving me real time evidence that I am, in fact, doing an awesome job in my life and that if I do have any blunders during the day, the Universe will gladly hand me an opportunity to do it better at another (usually very soon) time.

It’s magic.  And it’s not original.  I am a thousand pieces put together from a variety of sources: books I’ve read, quotes I’ve loved, memes I find funny, practices I have learned to respect over the years, people that’ve helped me on my journey.  I am my friends, my family, and my peers.  I am also Alison – a compilation of these things I have chosen to take and other things that I have chosen to leave.  I am unique in that I am exactly the same.  I have the same feelings, the same insecurities, the same vulnerabilities, the same strengths and the same tones as the rest of the world – we just express them differently and thankfully, at different times.

Following my last blog, the above is why it is so crucial to share and to keep sharing publicly. If somebody else didn’t share before me, I wouldn’t know it was OK to do so. It is so sacred to know that I am not alone in this world and that I am not suffering in my own story without you coming along.  It is so clear that I am just another, not better or worse, but a part of.  And if I am, so are you.  The Universe keeps showing me this is true – is it true for you?