simple living | The Enlightenment & Simple Living Institute

I am scheduled to go into a six week retreat on July 15th. Now, that I have most of my stuff in order for the retreat, I am asking myself about what I need to do to prepare for September – post retreat. “Is there anything I need to do now, that would support the expansion I am intending for the fall?”

The first natural question is, “What do you want the expansion to look like?” Pretty basic question, but I forget sometimes. I tend to think about what is “possible” or what is possible for September 2015, instead of what would work for me long term.

Many years ago I did an intensive study on myself. When I first introduced TELSI I wrote a little bit about this process. Today, I got back out the results of my study, because I noticed something was not quite right about my visioning process. Specifically, I was thinking about teaching ongoing internal arts development classes (chi gung, tai chi, etc.) and something about that wasn’t sitting right. I have taught Chi Gung and internal arts practices before and would like to develop something new that integrates all the things I know.

One look at the summary of my skills and I can see that teaching ongoing classes is not going to keep my attention for long. If I choose to do this, I will need to create something bigger or I will get bored. And I am ready for something bigger.

Since, the personal study I did has been so valuable for me over the years, I want to share with you the tools that I used. As I mentioned in the earlier post I used the book Zen and the Art of Making a Living to determine my mission statement:

I am here to live simply, enjoy life, reach my highest human potential and encourage (inspire) others to do the same.

When I did my initial study I also purchased too other books: One was I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was and the other was Why You Can’t Be Anything You Want to Be. I was intrigued by the opposite messages of the titles.

I actually found the second book to be the most helpful. It walks you through a process of looking at the most satisfying events in your life (yes, they all can be from childhood) and analyzing them to discover the common elements. The common elements help you formulate a “Motivational Ability Pattern” or MAP that can be used to determine if a job or career situation is a good match to your unique personality. Here is mine:

I work best when I am presented with a problem or need in my fields of interest including alternative medicine, healing, transformative processes, personal recovery/growth, or spirituality. I like to look into the background of the situation by reading and/or observing and integrating/analyzing what I know so that I can organize the information to give to others or use systematically to solve the problem. I like to physically accomplish the task using tools, equipment, computers and/or machines and create a presentation or document for others. In order to feel satisfied I need to have accomplished my goal and produced something that creates ease in the lives of other people while maintaining respect for the overall ecosystem. I like to work with support “authority” staff that is available to help me when I need it, otherwise allowing me to work independently.

A few years later I expanded my personal analysis by adding information from What Color Is Your Parachute?This book walks you through a process of determining:

favorite skills
favorite interests
geography (where do you want to live)
favorite types of people
how do you want to feel
favorite goals
favorite working environment
favorite values
preferred income and level of responsibility

For instance, my favorite skills are prioritized by my ability to do them and interest in doing them. People that know me as a teacher or healer are often surprised when I tell them that those talents are not my strongest skills. Indeed, teaching falls at number 4 and healing is at the bottom of the list at number 6.

Organizing data or things – creating efficiency – creating systems – planning – optimizing systems
Analyzing – solving problems –
Researching – studying – learning new things
Teaching – training – sharing what I’ve learned with others – writing procedures or informational documents – creating presentations
Guiding – motivating – advising – supervising – leading others
Healing – supporting transformation in others

As I plan for the fall, I need to keep in mind that I need to create a business that is big enough so I can organize, analyze, and research. Currently I’ve managed to keep myself satisfied by using the income from teaching and healing to provide me with time to blog and write books. Business development itself will keep my organizational and analytical parts satisfied. I will develop a business where I can turn over teaching and healing components to others over time while I develop the cutting line and fresh classes.

I used my new outside shower for the first time yesterday at 8pm. Water was the perfect temperature and the hot water lasted for the whole shower! I’ve been wanting an outdoor shower since I moved in. The first hurdle was deciding where it should go.

I picked this corner of the backyard: shower2

The first step was to sink a post and put up the screen a friend gave me. (Thanks Geo!)

Of course I had to clear out all that stuff that was lying around.

Then I installed the Homewerks Shower Kit.I got it on Amazon for under $50. Very nice, heavy duty chrome finish.

Then came the difficult part of planning the plumbing. I have been satisfied in the past with using a black hose as a “solar hot water heater” so I thought I would use some design that was similar. I know from experience that hoses will “explode” if kept under pressure in the Phoenix heat (even hoses that are “guaranteed” to handle pressure) so I was thinking about a PVC pipe design.

The first thing I learned was that PVC is actually not rated to withstand temperatures above 100 degrees. (So why do they even sell it in Phoenix?). What I needed was something called CPVC that is more expensive and is typically used for interior hot water plumbing. It is an alternative to copper.

I got lucky. Ten foot sections of 1 inch CPVC usually sell for about $12 each – I found them on clearance at Lowes for less than 50 cents each. I bought the last bunch of 1 inch CPVC in the county. All the fittings I had to special order as well.

The design was simple. I teed off the main PVC line with 1/2 CPVC. I took that up to the utility room roof and used elbows to a create a looped line of 1 inch CPVC. I estimated that the loop system holds about 2 gallons of water. Not much, but in the summer there is no such thing as cold water in Phoenix anyway. I figured if I used the shower when the sun is hitting the piping the water will be scalding hot. Two gallons of scalding water is more than adequate for a shower once mixed with the “cold” water.