Lately I’ve been really drawn to pictorial representations of what’s going on in my head and in my life.  Maybe it’s because I’m feeling pretty scrambled, dealing with lots of loose, untidy ends.  Pictures seem to help me see from a distance where words corral me too close.

We still haven’t finalized a place to live when our current lease is up in exactly 19 days, and for me that’s living on the edge.  I don’t think I ever not known at what address I’ll be plumping my bed pillow.  This is new territory.  I’m learning to cope.

Although yesterday I began to feel overwhelmed by the situation.  I’m not faulting myself for that, but I hate overwhelm so much I wanted preventative measures above everything.  So, I started constellating (or mapping if you prefer) my thoughts with scrap paper, colored pencils and permission to draw badly.  I ended up with this…

In the end, I captured an array of clutter, the angst, a way through.  I definitely give this constellating business a thumb’s up.

If you want to try the exercise yourself, here are a few bits of advice:

• Try to not get hung up about drawing skills or wordsmithing or anything like that. Sometimes the ol’ hands don’t quite capture what’s in the ol’ head, like – ahem – that pink spiky thing in the bottom left corner.  That’s supposed to be a tree.
• Be curious about what spills out.  Figure out what stuff means later.
• Don’t fiddle with the flow.
• Your output only has to make sense to you.

In Wiccan lore, so I’ve been told, the full moon is for releasing while a new moon is for asking.  That’s the extant of my Wiccan knowledge, and please don’t quote me on that interpretation.  It might be drastically off-base and unrecognizable to Wiccans.  No disrespect intended towards them.

In any case, I like the balancing aspect of the moon ritual.  By constellating the cosmos of my brain I discovered what I can let go of to gain some peace of mind.  It’s kind of like witnessing the birth of a whole new little universe in the bowl of a candy dish.

My writing is hitting one snag after another this morning, and I’m 93% sure I’ll simply back away from the keyboard today and work on something else.  Except I don’t want to start the something else on a soured note.  So, I’ve been revisiting some of my favorite mood re-calibrators, including this video.   (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gcG9uba7h4)

It reminds me of my tendency to overthink and overstate, but also that I can underthink and understate.  Between those two is the happy medium that I like best of all.

For those whose eyes are playing tricks on you, we’re talking about Different Angles this week (not different angels).  I’ve given myself some trippy moments writing this piece by making that typo, let me tell you.

Anyhow, rolling right along from where we left off yesterday with Steps One (Clarifying the Problem) and Two (Identifying Different Angles), you’re now all primed and pumped for the rest, I’m talking Steps 3 through 7.  The process begins to move fast at the mid-point.

Step 3 – Assess the Angles that Call to You

There’s a small litmus test for the narrowed list of angles, and once again it relies on gut responses.   As a little reminder, yesterday I narrowed the list of different angles from five down to two and these are the two I’ll explore a little more before whittling down to just one:  Pizzeria in the Square and Jo Jo Who Go-go’s

Each of the angles on the short list is assessed by these two questions:

• Does this angle pique my curiosity?  Yes or No.
• Does it leave a trail of breadcrumbs I want to follow?  Yes or No.

That’s it.  Maybes aren’t included by design.

Because there are no maybes, you need to trust your gut’s immediate response. It’s too easy for Analysis Paralysis to swoop down in these early stages and create a muddle just as you’re starting to step a little closer to clarity. Your gut will surprise you with how clear it can be.

The goal of this step isn’t pointedly to make your short list of different angles even shorter, although that may happen.  Your goal is to sniff out any “shoulds” lurking behind your choices and to vet out the angles that don’t really spark a lot of interest.  Again, gut responses are especially helpful for sniffing and vetting.

Myself, I can answer Yes to both questions for both of my angles.  And so, both will accompany me to Step Four.

Step Four – Imagine Tackling the Problem from Each Angle

In this phase of the exercise you act as if you’ve followed the trail of breadcrumbs and as if the angle is operational. The objective is to find out if the breadcrumbs you followed still have an appeal and if a sense of possibility prevails.

This step entails a great deal of imagineering, suspended reality, and talking to yourself. You draw a scene on the sidewalk of your mind based on each angle and you interact with it.  It’s all happening in your head, at least for the moment.

You care about how each angle “feels” and not figuring out the rationality or the rationale behind it.  It can get a little trippy, of course, which makes it whole lot more interesting to do than straightforward, data-crunching analysis.  There’s a time and place for both.  Read on and you’ll see.

First angle, Pizzeria in the Square – From this angle there’s definitely a feeling of being settled and comfortable. We’ve gotten to know the head waiter at the pizzeria.  He actually remembers our names and shakes our hands before we sit down. We’ve had our weekly language lessons, and so we try to practice our Spanish as we chat with him, but he speaks English to us anyway.  We recognize some of the people sitting in and around the square – the elderly couples, for example whose grown children drive down from Valencia on a Sunday with their children. Three generations drinking coffees or syrupy drinks and talking over one another.  Everything that can go wrong during house renovations has gone wrong, and to get a break from the frustrations we knew would come but hoped they wouldn’t all the same, we treat ourselves to a pizza and a decent bottle of wine.  What bubbles up sometimes, though, is a feeling of regret, of having closed ourselves off from other travels because the renovations demand our full attention.  We wanted a roof of our own and we got it. But the roof came with leaks, so we got those, too.

In the end, I’m not so sure I like where the breadcrumbs of this angle are leading.  There’s a feeling of being too comfortable in the comfort zone, and being too wrapped up in creating the perfect house in which to live but not enough living actually going on.

Moving on to angle number two.

Jo Jo Who Go-go’s -  Straightaway Jo Jo elbows the remnants of the first angle off the stage.  She wants all the free space she can get, because she has a lot of gyrating to do and a girl who wants to gyrate needs her space. (shimmy shimmy)

Why can’t we, she wants to know, sprinkle a little of this and a little of that into our plan and more or less have it both ways?  (shimmy shimmy)

Because you can’t have it both ways.

Says who? (shimmy shimmy)

Life.

Life said that?  (shimmy shimmy)  That’s not cool.  (shimmy shimmy)

In the last memo.

Didn’t get a memo. (shimmy shimmy) Wait, I’ve kind of forgotten what a memo looks like.  (shimmy shimmy)

Don’t worry about it.

I’m not. (shimmy shimmy) Listen, why not go to Italy for a couple months and then come back to Spain, and find a house if you still want to?  (shimmy shimmy shimmy)

But what if the house we’re eye-balling has been nabbed by somebody else?

Then it’s nabbed. (shimmy shimmy)  And you’ll survive the loss.  (shimmy shimmy) And you’ll move on.  (shimmy shimmy).  And you find another that strikes your fancy.  (shimmy shimmy) Or you don’t, if that’s your fancy.  (shimmy shimmy) You gotta decide your fancy at some point, sure.  (shimmy shimmy) But does it have to be now?  (shimmy shimmy).  No, it doesn’t. (shimmy shimmy) So, to Italy first.  (shimmy shimmy) Have a little float and dabble there. (shimmy shimmy) And get fat on good pasta.  (shimmy shimmy)  Mmmm…good pasta. (shimmy shimmy shimmy shimmy)

In Jo Jo’s angle there’s no room for small, mean cages. The breadcrumbs stay away from cages but don’t shy from question marks and a lot of openness either.  Not to mention the sneaky tactic of appealing to my easily swayed stomach. But dang, I like the way problem is reshaped into a plan.  The openness feels a little scary but also smart.  And more importantly, right.

Step Five – Brainstorm Next Steps from the Chosen Angle

One of the reasons it pays to go deep with your imagination in Step Four is that it can make Step Five that much easier.

Keeping in mind that you haven’t said Yes to anything just yet, Step Five is about cogitating some actions you could take if you say Yes to what exploring the preferred angle has revealed.

For example, thanks to Jo Jo, I’m pretty clear that I’m called to travel in Italy for at least a little while, a kind of last hurrah before I say “I do” to one place.  Given that, a couple of obvious next steps would be to look up some apartment rentals in Italy and check the ferry schedule from Barcelona to Civitivecchia, Livorno or Genoa.  We could spend a few days in Barcelona before catching the ferry as well, so that would entail finding a dog-friendly hotel.

Other next steps popping off the top of my head:

• Contact an English-speaking architect and arrange for him to meet us at the fixer-upper we’re considering.  That way we can get discuss the feasibility and potential costs of our plans with someone who knows the planning permission rules and has done this sort of thing a few times.
• Find a storage facility for our stuff.  We bring to Italy what we can carry in the Peugeot, and it’s not all that much.
• Talk to the café owner who mentioned she knew of a winter rental that might suit us if we decide to come back to Moraira post-Italy.
• Check out the cost of a roof rack for the Peugeot. Must remember who we’re dealing with – two foodie adults who don’t like to part with their kitchen gear.

Once you’ve engaged with an angle very different from where you started the stuckness dissolves, and the problem you might then face is not having enough options but in having a few too many.

Step Six – Putting the Brainstormed Next Steps on the Calendar.

I find that if I don’t put something on the calendar it never gets done because it’s been forgotten.  Which is not to say that calendaring is foolproof. Just saying that the likelihood I’ll do the step gets a significant boost.

Other than that my rule of thumb for to-do lists is pretty simple – take the time frame into consideration, and be reasonable. There needs to be really good reason to have a beefy to do list, like the fact that in five weeks our lease is up.  So, in the next week or so I’ll have to stay on top of these new items and still put in a good effort with my work to-do’s and rest-of-life to-do’s. The new to-do’s will probably increase as I go along, get more information, and find snags in the planning.  Nonetheless, I can still pencil in a schedule for the items in question in anticipation of Step 7.

• Today – Call architect and set up an appointment for next week
• Saturday – check ferry schedules; send 5-6 queries about apartments in Italy.
• Monday – stop by the café  and ask owner about the winter let
• Tuesday – do additional rental inquiries for Italy if needed.
• Wednesday – contact storage facilities
• Saturday – research roof racks

Step 7 – Step Over the (Imaginary) Commitment Line Towards ___________?

What exactly are you committing to in this step?  An angle?  A plan, even if it’s rough and rudimentary?  At least one action step?  Something, anything so that the 2800+ words written on this topic so far don’t appear a complete waste of time?

Your commitment can be towards all of the above, some of the above, or none of the above. The environment we’ve been operating is made of Play-doh and not cement.  The cementing happens only when you choose to pour it.

Because, let’s face it, you can commit to nothing further than further exploration.  That may entail revisiting an angle previously rejected, brainstorming some more angles, or even time testing the angle you have.  Or, you don’t have to commit to anything at all, if you don’t want to.

Unlike other commitments you might have to make in your life, this is one where you do it because you want to, not because there’s pressure filtering in from elsewhere.  When you step over the (imaginary) line that binds you to your intentions, you say “I will…” not “I can….”  And if you don’t say “I will” honestly, you won’t be satisfied with what that asks of you.

Even in my situation I don’t have to commit to doing anything but moving out the day our lease ends.  I still have the option of taking in-the-moment to its extremes, throwing all caution to the wind, figuring out our next steps only one day to the next.

Except that that’s not how I’m wired and that strategy isn’t friendly towards running a business.

So, for me a commitment to addressing our relocation issue is both essential and wanted.  I happen to like the angles I unfolded in Step 3.  I happen to like the possibilities Jo Jo who Go-go’s brought to my attention in Step 4.  I happen to be on board with the next steps that I came up with in Step 5. I happen to feel confident about my ability to follow-through on the scheduling penciled in Step 6.  As a result, saying I will commit to them in Step 7 isn’t a bother.

It is, in fact, sweet relief.

Yesterday I had every intention of  picking up where we left off on Tuesday.  But then…we were invited to join friends for lunch at a local pub and a sweet deal to boot,  3 courses – starter, main course, dessert and all the wine you can drink for about 12 euros.  Hell yeah, thus we went.   I offered to be the DD, so that my writing plans for the day would have a fighting chance at survival.  Despite that position of authority – one would think  – since I was holding the car keys, I couldn’t get the others to peel their  lips from the the wine jug.  All belligerence.  They boozed their way merrily through the afternoon heat as I sipped agua sin gas (still water)  and tried to be merry myself and not seem utterly distracted about wanting to do nothing else but go home and write.  {sigh}

Yet, here we are, a new day with it’s new penny shine.  And just as hot.  And the  boozers have hangovers you can photograph.

On that note of divine justice, let’s resume our thread about Different Angles as a strategy for leaving hamster wheels to the hamsters and finding possibility when there appears to be none.

No better place to start than Step One – Clarifying the Problem.

Clarifying the problem is not so much finding the right words as identifying the heart of the issue.  Wouldn’t you know, the sticky stuff backing what’s really bugging you is often very different from your operational assumptions.  I’ll use my geographic dilemma as an example.

To recap from last time, on the surface the problem seems to be simply do we settle down and make a home in the area of Spain we’ve been for the past six months or do we resume our plans to be semi-nomadic, spending six months here, a few months there, etc.

Assume that we have our list of compelling pros and cons for each option, and that we’ve done our analysis.  Each option offers risks and safety of different kinds.   I don’t want to go into those details because they’re actually beside the point, that we’re stymied by what lies beneath, by the real problem:  a fear of getting this decision wrong. Because if we get it wrong there are, as to be expected, consequences.  Not life threatening consequences, mind you, but life impacting.

No doubt many of you are familiar with the fear of WRONG,  a fear so big that only capital letters apply, and how immobilizing it can be.  Others, though, may wrastle more with the fear of being boxed into an Either/Or situation, of a too limited set of choices.  Or, there’s the fear of playing it safe, sometimes coexisting with the fear of being too reckless.  And if you’ve spent some time exploring the cast of characters within your character, perhaps you’ve bumped into the Peanut Gallery of the Mind, the “they” that have no names but we act as if we must answer to them.  We feel the pressure of them as genuinely as if they’re actual human beings piled on the small of our backs.

The problem behind the problem is quite often fear related.  Which doesn’t exactly amp the palatability of the exercise.  Still,  be it a case of fear or not,  when you name what’s really bugging you, you’re ready for Step Two, which is yet another step closer to shifting from flummoxed to flowing.

Step Two – Brainstorming Different Angles

First, let me clarify what I mean by a different angle:  simply put it’s a different view, a different perspective, a different vantage point, a different lens – pick the synonym you like best – by/through which to look at a situation.

An example of what I mean would be that I could look at the Settled vs. Semi-nomadic question from a perspective that doesn’t worry about the wrong choice but assumes we’ll make the right choice.  That’s an obvious example that errs on the side of Pollyannaism, but nonetheless I think you can get the gist of what’s being illustrated. What becomes possible by changing the view from which we examine our options?  For starters we don’t have the fear blowing smoke in our eyes anymore, and that alone makes it much easier to see what might lie ahead.

As perfectly legitimate as this more positive angle may be, it’s not “it”.  It’s not the one that will part the clouds and let the sun pour in.  It’s useful, but I suspect there’s a better angle just around the corner.  It may take 4 or 5 more before I find an angle with a good fit, sizzle, and heft.  Just the prospect of figuring out other angles – because the sky’s the limit – sends some people into a tailspin, so I’m going to walk you through some of the ways I initiate the brainstorming.  (Keep in mind that this is just a sample.  There are a hundred other approaches. )

Metaphor – Use a metaphor as a frame.  For example, I sometimes use the metaphor of Dog-spots-Squirrel.  What happens when a chase-loving dog espies a nut-munching squirrel a hundred yards ahead?  He becomes indelible focus dog.  He’s not aware of anything but the bushy-tailed rodent in his line of sight and nothing else matters,  not even a sprinkler system that will get his feet wet which he doesn’t like, especially not even his mommy who asks ever so politely if he would please refrain from harassing the wildlife.

One of my clients dug into her kitchen pantry for some metaphorical inspiration when we did this step. That was a coaching call not to be forgotten. It’s not every day you talk with someone who uses hot sauce and pickle relish as frames for viewing a problem.

Metaphor, let this option whir in the background while we move on to some other mechanisms.

Icons/Archetypes – Essentially you ask yourself, if I were this person (insert archetype or icon) what would be my take on the situation?  If you were Winston Churchill, say, or Coco Chanel…?  If you were Ramona the Brave or Don Quixote…?  It’s not important that your vision include historical accuracy for a historical person.  It’s your interpretation of this icon or archetype that counts.  As a viewing structure this works because it asks you to step outside yourself and into the shoes of someone or something larger than you generally believe yourself to be.

Change of Geography — This entails actually changing your physical location in order to change where you sit mentally.  It’s not necessary for the change in geography to involve great distances and airplanes.  Sometimes all you need to do is take a bus to the park across town or leave your study to spend a little time in the guest bedroom.  Even moving from the sofa closest to the TV to the love seat in the corner can make a difference.  Some of the magic is in the physicality, of moving from A to B, even when the shift is slight.  Some of the magic comes from the curiosity that naturally springs from relocating from one place to the next, even when the change of scene is only a matter of yardage.

Ask One of the Cast for Guidance – In a nutshell you call forward one of your cast  who generally use their powers for your good, and the greater good isn’t a stretch. (As with the Coop of Doubt.)  A member of my cast is named Jo Jo who Go-go’s.  She has big hair, white patent boots and a preference for prints  a person of my height could never get away with.  Light-hearted and saucy, she’s an accountant by education and a dancer by preference. The only reason she confines her dancing to a cage is that she gets so enthusiastic she’s been known to leave a few black eyes in her wake.  So out of concern for others and decent level of social awareness, she only go-go’s in her go-to zone.  I think it’s obvious that I like Jo Jo and like the energy she calls up, but that’s not the only reason I might seek a different view through her.  It’s the blend of pragmatism and dynamism that so nicely aligns with the practical dreamer in me.

Stitching together what we have thus far…

To recap the vehicles for finding different angles, we have:

1)  Assume right vs. wrong.

2) Dog-spots-Squirrel metaphor.

3) Icon/Archetype – I didn’t actually name one earlier.  To be frank, that concept isn’t singing to me for this particular problem.  Sometimes it jives, sometimes it doesn’t.  If forced on pain of death to pick one, I’d choose Minerva, because I’ve always liked what she stood for.  But if you have to choose an icon on pain of death, the exercise itself is kind of a moot point.  Obviously, in that case there are bigger problems to be sorted.

4) Considering I’ve been glued to my desk chair all afternoon writing this piece, I’m both itchy for a change of scene and yet approaching brain dead.  Brain dead is winning.  Nonetheless, I’ll give this one a quick go.  The other night  we went into town the other night for a pizza.  Despite the summer holiday crowds we had no problem finding a table at our favored cafe in the square near the church.  It was a warm evening tempered by a light breeze.  There was a buzz and a noise level that only kiddies demanding ice creams and rides on the coin-operated taxicab and weary parents needing a little peace and with coins in their coin purses can generate.  We hadn’t been to dinner in town for a while, so the change of scene was welcome.  I liked the way the world looked from where I sat that evening.  And if I were to name a geographical shift for the sake of this argument, it would be something along the lines of pizzeria in the town square.  Remember that for next time.

5)  Cast member,  Jo Jo who Go-go’s.  Much said about her already.  More very likely said about her in the next post.

The last bit of Step Two – narrowing the field

I’m going with my gut response here and going with the angles that tickle my curiosity the most.   And those are angles #4 and #5.  Gut responses aren’t easily explained, but in the next post the fuzzy logic of mine will likely float to the surface as I tackle the next couple of steps in the Different Angles process.

Now, it’s time for an evening swim.  And the walking of a dog who’s kind of crossing his legs.  It’s been months since he’s seen a squirrel, but in their absence he’s discovered the joy of chasing rabbits.  Much to the regret of the rabbits.

I promised myself I wouldn’t write any how-to type posts this week.  Because that’s been the trend for the (whopping) two weeks since I launched a “business blog”, and if I’m already getting a little bored by the samey-sameness of it you might be as well.   Plus, I’m feeling the production pressure…to meet the deadlines of my own making…and not get mentally vortexed into second guessing…amidst the distraction of having to tackle ant infestations of varying size and scope.  My feelings about which I must ventilate or my head will explode.

ANTS!

Because pest control services apparently aren’t routine in our part of Spain, we’ve have had the pleasure of ant outbreaks on a near daily basis.  Sometimes the mofos pour in from many hidey holes, and the only how-to on my mind is how to best smote them with Biblical  intensity. I can literally claim to have had ants in my pants thanks to one especially galling infiltration.  But for the grace of somebody’s god I wasn’t wearing the pants at the time. Tim (my significant other) travels around the house – inside and out – with a canister of pink ant-death powder and a spoon, because sometimes you have to spoon the powder into the millimeter-sized crevice from which the ants originate.  It’s a delicate operation, and he’s quite good at it.  Between the powder and the death spray that is our back up, this house is close to becoming a brown site.  I have a lot to say about ants, as you can tell, and it’s a terrible shame I’m not clever enough to spot a neat, clever segue from ant outbreaks to today’s topic:  angles.

As in using the concept of different angles to cogitate a viable solution to a problem that’s giving you a brain wedgie.

My brain wedgie behind the change-up in not doing a topical change-up.

I happen to have a situ that’s giving me a mammoth brain wedgie.  Thus far talking it over with trusted people hasn’t produced any budging, not because they didn’t try or didn’t offer their help with the best of intentions. I’m simply dealing with one of those decisions that can’t be nudged along by anybody else’s take, by what anybody else would do, and especially not by what anybody else would have me do so they can experience it vicariously.

I’ve got to make it on my own, based on my relationship with life’s big questions, based on the more positive vision I cradle.  Actually, though, it’s an “us” decision, specifically what do Tim and I want to do with our lives after September 27^th when our current lease ends.  That’s like five weeks from now. Let me say upfront that doing nothing is not an option, because in five weeks we’re homeless save for our small Peugeot.  (I am hugely grateful that doing something is a must; that’s one less alternative on the table.)  So, do we…

• Commit to living in Spain for a few more years?  If so, do we buy the fixer-upper which will give us a mortgage but save us in rent, or do we continue to rent?  If we rent, do we stay in Moraira, or do we give Barcelona or San Sebastian a go?
• Commit to the earlier semi-nomadic plan and live in Italy for 6-7 months, live with the question marks of what comes thereafter, see what strikes our fancy come spring?
• Go to Italy for 2-3 months, and then wander elsewhere for a few more before returning home?
• Orchestrate a sign from heaven, which is tricky because we’re both agnostic?

All of the above options have pros and cons, opportunities and limitations, comforts and risks.  That’s why I have a brain wedgie*.  That’s what inspired me to write about the how-to of different angles, if only to remind myself about this strategy I both know and have preached.

*Note:  I realize that some people might say I should be so lucky to have this problem, what with the unemployment rates being what they are, hurricane season kicking into gear, and the usual starving in the world.  To which I reply, yes I am lucky, and I’m not interested in your theories of personal problem relativity.  Got it?  Oh, good.

There you have it, the winded wind up.  Now, the straighter pitch.

Looking at a problem from different angles is NOT an exercise in finding the bright side.  Frankly, there isn’t always a bright side.  You know it.  I know it.   Being Practical Dreamers we don’t like having bright sides forced upon us.  Invitations to positivity are OK, but forced feedings of positivity are not.

Looking at a problem from different angles creates an opening for making a decision and a commitment to taking action.  It can also help you see options when there appear to be none. That’s not my deal at the moment, but I have used this angles exercise for that purpose.

It’s an exercise of seven parts as follows.

1)    Clarify the problem – because the problem behind the brain wedgie isn’t always what we think it is.

2)    Identify some different angles, and then narrow the field down to a couple.

3)    Assess the angles that call to you.

4)    Imagine yourself tackling the problem in the midst of these angles, and choose one.

5)    Brainstorm some next steps from this vantage point.

6)    Put these steps on the calendar.  Cement your intention to follow through.  Set up whatever accountability mechanisms you need to make good on your intentions.

7)    Step over the (imaginary) commitment line that magically appears at that very second, and from there you live happily ever after.

Ok, maybe that’s too tall an order.

Maybe you live happily ever after and maybe you don’t.  What’s certain is that you shift from the land of brain wedgies to the land of de-wedgied.

Over the next few days I’ll drill down into the particulars of this exercise.  It took a bit of very focused puttering to get where I am with the topic today, and it’s time for a nap.

So, tune in tomorrow when I explore numero uno, the gist of the problem – what’s really bugging me, what’s really giving an innately uncomfortable brain wedgie an extra vicious triple twist.

As I unwind towards some kind of resolution using my trusty different angles strategy, you’re most welcome to pipe in with the details of your own.  Believe me, I’d be glad for the company.