Correction: Three Words Are Not Enough
By Jacey Eckhart
My intention was to be inspiring, resourceful, and soothing during my parents’ move to their new condo. My mom laid out and laughed at that last one.
“Soothing!” she gasped, holding her stomach and rolling around on the carpet.
“Yes, soothing,” I said in a huff.
Honestly, sometimes my little mother is the biggest fan of my work and sometimes she is the one who points out the gaposis.
As she points out, there is a refinement needed for my “Three to BE” exercise (32B). It is the exercise you are supposed to do at the BEginning of a Next Door Project to set your intention not only about what you want to do, but also about how you want to BE. Why wasn’t it working this time?
Probably because we were already tired when we started.
Probably because there was a big time crunch.
Probably because there were so many complicated feelings attached to this Next Door Project!!
I really do want to be a help to my mom during the major move that is her Next Door Project. ‘Cause she is little and I love her. So I thought about it more and made two lists.
My first list was all the ways I was actually BEing: Impatient yet inclusive. Pushy yet seeking harmony. Frazzled yet valiantly swallowing all my feelings in ice cream.
Then I made a list of all the ways I could be instead: Compromising, connecting, curious, determined, finishing, kind, leading, transforming, wise.
I brought my mom the lists. “What do you need me to be, Mom? Pick three,” I told her.
“I pick leading and finishing,” she said. “And I want you to do that thing you do when you respect that fact that we are adults and can make our own decisions.” She said this with a bit of a side eye.
Got it.
So if you are doing your Next Door Project, set a note on your calendar midway through the process to check and make sure that your intention lines up with a) how you are actually behaving, and b) what the situation requires. Because even the best of intentions isn’t always enough to conquer your Next Door Project.
