Honestly, I thought the insane emotional addiction aspect would be the rough part.

But even once that passes, there’s still all the other hard.

It took a lot of time, tearing-out-of-hair and trying-of-stuff to come up with the systems and the work-arounds that make it work.

So. What didn’t work and what did. Like a Friday Chicken but for my email sabbatical.

No iguana taxation without representation! Unpacking (metaphor!) the metaphor.

Here’s the situation. Tax prep time. Not happening. Except that I’ve been Metaphor Mouse-ing my business systems.

Specifically the ones that help me deal with iguanas (the annoying things that I expertly resist doing)

And last week it was time. To to do the taxes. And ugh ugh ugh. I was being avoidance mouse.

Which means it was time to call on … ta da! Cape-swooshing-sounds! Metaphor mouse!*

To help me and my duck rewrite our associations with “doing taxes”.

* This is is really just me yelling I AM METAPHOR MOUSE to the tune of Iron Man. Obviously.

Explanation please?
Iguanability is short for Iguanaccountability, which is what happens when you get deguiltified accountability with your iguanas.
Iguanas are the [stupid, crappy, annoying] things you don’t feel like doing.
Doing this iguanability thing is a reminder that it’s completely normal to avoid stuff you don’t feel like doing and that you are a lovely [...]

So I like to chicken. It’s my thing. My friend Karen prefers to iguana instead.

Because iguanas are awesomely creepy. And because iguana kind of sounds like “I don’t wanna”, which is how we tend to feel about whatever it is we’re hell-bent on not doing.

Hence the Inowanna Iguana. Which she drew. It just gets more complicated from there so I’m going to stop explaining now.

Just take it from me. Karen is brilliant. And gorgeous. And my chicken is joining the iguanas.

Well, that’s how I do it.

Your version can be way less ramble-ey.

Point 5: There’s time.

Really.

There’s time.

People see what I’m doing here — teaching what I know, modeling what it’s like to have a conscious, intentional, non-preachy relationship with yourself — and the coolest thing happens.

It inspires them to go out and do it too.

People start blogs. They open practices. They start teaching what they know. It’s the most beautiful thing in the entire world.

And even when they go deep into the scary where the walls and the monsters are, they remember that it can work.

They remember that my baby blog here pays rent for three people. Real rent, not unheated-hole-in-East-Berlin rent. And that’s without even taking on any advertising or sponsorship.

So if I can get over my own deep, painful “you’re not allowed to receive and you’re not allowed to be visible” stucknesses, and that can inspire other people to get over theirs?

I like it.

It takes me out of that panicky trying to see the whole picture *and* all the details at once mode.

It takes me from oh god this kitchen is a disaster to “my one thing for now is just going to be putting the mixing bowl away.”

It pulls me out of crap crap crap I really need a three-month sabbatical to work on my book and deposits me back into “what if I just spent a few minutes with my gentleman friend after dinner talking about where I am with this?”

Fear #1: My fear of being a slacker.

Otherwise known as my fear of spending five years in a row doing nothing but staring at the wall and picking lint out of my belly button. Otherwise known as my fear of repeating the better part of my twenties.

Me: Whoah. Interesting. Okay, you’re totally allowed to be afraid of this if that’s what you’re feeling.
Fear: Uh-huh. I know.
Me: Um, can I just remind you though that we weren’t actually slacking off? We were just, you know, paralyzed by some seriously crippling perfectionism that kept us from even thinking about trying anything. Well, that and exhausted from working until 7 a.m. at the bar.
Fear: Whatever. Maybe. What’s important is that I need to keep that from ever happening again.
Me: Man, you are always trying to protect me. And I manage to forget that every single time.

Here’s my question:

I think there are just some things that are not in one’s nature, and there’s no reason to force yourself.

But how can you tell if you are being true to yourself, or just giving in to what feels safe?

Here is a concrete example from my life: I’m an introverted person. That doesn’t mean I don’t like people, or don’t enjoy being with them, or even meeting new people, but it takes a *lot* out of me.

So what was happening was that I was getting way, way better at saying no, but at the same time way, way more people were asking.

So if all those people asked for something and I was brave enough to say no to almost all of them, it still sucked.

I’d say no to nine out of ten impossible requests but that one last request might take forty-five minutes or more. If that happened every day … you see my point.

Moving on.

So Mona and Jess and a bunch of people whose names aren’t coming to mind at the moment have asked me to “report back” on the whole email sabbatical thing.

And — if you’re not in the loop — my duck and I decided to take a break from email for all of 2009 as one of my many experiments in how to run a successful business while still maintaining some semblance of sanity.