Clear Eyes. Full Heart. Can’t Lose.

This post is part of Reverb 10, a project that provides daily prompts in the month of December to help you reflect on the past year and set your intentions for the year ahead.

Today’s prompt (from Tara Sophia Mohr):

What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today. 

I want to earn an income from my writing (including this blog), performing, and/or yoga. No question. In other words, I want to support myself by doing the things I love most.

“Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”

– Friday Night Lights, one of my favorite TV shows

I envision a spectrum. At one end: Working 40 hours a week for someone else, in an office. At the other end: Making a living by doing what I love, for myself… on my time. When I left PBS back in 2006 and started freelancing, I moved a considerable distance down the spectrum. Now that I wasn’t feeling drained from office politics and other work baggage, I had more energy for myself. I felt giddy. I could design my own schedule: blogging in my pajamas at 10am, with Cosmo by my side; yoga class mid-day, and maybe a trip to the market; a beer if I felt like it, or working from my front porch, or taking the day off when I felt shitty and, other times, working evenings and weekends when I was on a roll. I could also take on the occasional weekday improv gig.

It was wonderful. It IS wonderful. But lately, it’s not enough.

It’s time to move further down the spectrum. I can feel it in my bones, in every fiber of my being. And I’m EXCITED.

When the day comes that I am making money from something I love – something I make, that’s mine, that I care about deeply…something I’d do, even if no one paid me… I imagine this feeling of excitement growing, until I can’t contain my smile. My heart will feel so big.

10 things I can do today to experience this feeling:

1. Supported fish pose (a “heart-opening” yoga pose)

2. Deep, long savasana (a deeply relaxing yoga pose…relaxation opens my heart)

3. Walk and play with Cosmo. Notice what he notices.

4. Read poetry by Mary Oliver, Rumi – their beautiful words, images and ideas touch my heart directly.

5. Plan Thursday’s tea date with Kimberly, a friend who deeply energizes and inspires me.

6. Go to a yoga class at Tranquil Space, my original yoga home, and savor being back in such a beautiful, nourishing environment.

7. Stare at the sky – streaks of white on a vast vast blue canvas…

8. Meditate. Feel my own energy reverberating throughout my body. Feel my breath moving inside me. Feel. Be alive. Be present.

9. Savor my lunch date with Greg and Christina, two of my favorite friends. Soak in the warmth.

10. Be with Jordan – just driving downtown together, or in the moments between yoga class and lunch… all these in-between moments, when I turn to him and feel a surge of love, and such happiness and gratitude for our togetherness.

How about you? What would you like to feel like today? What are a few ways you can make that feeling materialize?

Photo above by Flickr user Rachel Titiriga.