Rules Of Engagement: The Tools Of Beauty And Order

I hope I'm back. I hope I'm back and I hope that this is live. It says that it is. Something happened there, but welcome. I'm very excited to be here with you. We're going to talk about beauty and order today, which is a phrase I learned from some friends. If you're wondering about this fabulous lip color, I have to tell you it is Fenty Mattemoiselle in Flamingo Acid or Acid Flamingo, one or the other, because if I were you I'd be wondering about this fabulous lip color and it has to do with what I want to talk about today because it's August and it is such a liminal time.

It's A transitional time. We're going from one thing to another, but it's also liminal, which means in between. It's an in-between space. And I actually prefer to think about liminal. because that names it as a space that is in between two things as opposed to transition, which is moving from one thing to another. And we may be moving from one thing to another in a liminal space, but the invitation that I have for this time period is to dwell in that in-between space and make it your own, make it our own space.

And that's what I've been doing. August has been very It's very quiet in Washington DC in August because Congress is not in session. All the members of Congress go back to their districts or whatever or go on vacation or whatever they do, which means all the lobbyists and all the government affairs people and all the people who want to talk to the Congress people, they all leave as well. So it gets especially quiet here. Now, if you're in Minnesota, you know, so many people are at the cabin or on vacation, whatever it is, this is a quiet time except for people who have school-aged children where it's a very, very busy time because for many of you children who are going back to school, you had to come back and you had to get everything going.

Whatever's going on, it can be a transitional time if you're going from summer to school year or what have you. It's A liminal space for people like me. who I'm just, there are a number of things in my life that are on pause right now and I've talked about that. Two different jobs I'm talking to people about, different jobs I've applied for. My book contract still on pause, waiting to get that, although talking to the editor about the title. Stay tuned everybody. But I decided that instead of getting lost in that space, which is often what would happen to me in my anxiety, the abundance of choice, but also the pressure to use it perfectly, use the time perfectly would lead to an epic freeze state for me where I just hunker down, place my brain in park.

So I'm just scrolling, reading, watching TV, not reaching out, getting more and more isolated. It just, it gets bad. That is what one phase of my anxiety looks like when I'm just so overwhelmed I'm in a free state. So instead, the temptation to feel like I should be doing something else or more important is always there. But the reality is, my goal is always to use my time to be as engaged in upward trend activities of my choosing as possible all the time. Now, upward trend activities of my choosing sometimes involves rest, sometimes involves reading, sometimes involves scrolling.

It's when I lose the capacity to choose that, that it starts to feel overwhelming or bad, or I can tell that I'm in a free state. But one of the focus, I guess is the plural, one of the focuses I've had has been on beauty and order, especially the order part, but I want to start with talking about beauty. Rule of engagement number 36 for me is what goes in is what comes out. What I put into myself is what comes out. What I put into my brain is what comes out in my thinking or my speaking. What I listen to, what I read, the people I surround myself with.

And then of course food, what goes in is what comes out. The food, okay, that's a little more scatological than I intended, but if I eat well, then my health is better. That's what I wanted to get at. If I work out well, then my health is better. That result is, you know, what I do has a result. Whether I'm choosing like I do my best to do or whether I'm letting the decision make me, which often happens when my anxiety is high, the decision makes me. What helps with that, one of the bulwarks for me against that is beauty is I made a decision maybe 20 years ago now that I wanted to surround myself with things that were beautiful.

When I was at City Hall, every place I was likely to sit in my office, this was true as a city council member and as mayor, The chair I would sit in at my desk and then the chair I was likely to sit in at a meeting table. Things I had control over in my office, but also at home. Where do I sit to read at home when I'm in bed, my home office, whatever it is. I want in my line of sight always to be something beautiful, something that reminds me of the good in life, or something that reminds me that I'm connected to other people.

What does that mean? Beautiful art, quotes or symbols of good things from my life, photos of friends and family. Just to remind me, just so I have visual cues always. It meant that there were certain kinds of TV I didn't watch for years because I was watching endless crime shows. And so just murder and the worst of people treating each other was just coming in at me all the time. And it makes sense. I really liked it when people, I really like it when people investigate crime and then somebody pays for their crime.

Like I have an endless appetite for that, but it wasn't useful. So for many years I didn't watch those shows. And now I watch or read mysteries occasionally, but it's not a steady diet. What goes in is what comes out. And so we have art hung up on our walls all over here. Let's see, you can see there that piece right there is something I got at the Minnesota State Fair a number of years ago. If anybody knows John Rice, he lived in Northeast Minneapolis at the time. But if you went into our house, you would see it everywhere.

I love glass, particularly pink and green glass. I have a lot of pink and green glass in the places that I sit. There's a lot of clutter. We're going to get to the order part in a second. But it's been really great for me to focus on beauty. And so in this liminal time, I've been doing my best to enhance the beauty of my spaces. I have a diffuser because part of beauty for me is smelling good things. Right now I'm into a lavender ylang ylang jasmine mix that I make myself. Beauty. But The order part is also really important, and since.

I have this time and space, it finally occurred to me, I feel like I should be doing something else. I'm not doing something else. And one of my guidelines is if I don't stay on top of it, stays on top of me. That at the moment is guideline number 20. If I don't stay on top of it, it's going to stay on top of me. And my belongings, that is as true for my belongings as any emotion that I carry that I try to repress. If I don't stay on top of my I don't know, my grief or my anger or whatever, it will stay on top of me.

But that's true for my belongings. And so I have really taken the time to go through, I started in my closet and in my bathroom. In my closet, I have been going, because we're not moving, my husband and I, we thought about it, but we're not, but I'm treating it like we are, kind of, because I'm going through everything in my closet. Does it fit? Even if it does fit, do I wear it? Even if I occasionally wear it, do I actually like it more than I like other things in my closet? I have donated 7 maybe garbage bags full of clothing.

We have a donation drop in my building, which makes it so convenient. And I've also taken rounds of clothing to consignment shops and I have a few more rounds to go. and it's just created so much more space in my closet and it means that I now know where everything is and I don't have so much that I can't keep track of it. I mean, look, I'm wearing this today because it was like, oh, right, I have this jewel tone beauty that I like, this shirt. It's been great doing that in my closet. I also did that In my bathroom, I have all my cosmetics, all my stuff.

I have been editing those for years, taking in a few selective new things. I really like Jones Road and Elf, but mostly acknowledging that the overbuying I did, especially during the pandemic, and especially while I was mayor, the overbuying that I did. It's time to let go of things and some things I could give away, some things I put in the laundry room on this floor at the building and it just disappears. You know, people know it's used and they can take it or not if they want. I try and find a good home for everything that is important to me, but it means over and over and over.

I just, it's like, if something's on the cusp, it's like, you know what, it's on the cusp because I don't like it that much, I either throw it away or give it away. which means I know everything I own, including this beautiful Fenty Mattemoiselle Acid Flamingo lipstick, which was underneath a couple other lipsticks that I didn't like that much. But here this is, so I'm going to wear it more. And it's getting down to a manageable amount. I did a lot of overbuying and it was hard to get rid of stuff that I overbought because it felt like wasted money.

It felt like, if I don't use it, etc, etc. But it's going to go to waste in there or in the trash. And so it might as well go to waste in the trash, right? That's how I feel about food. It's either going to go to waste on my body or in the trash. I don't have to eat this. It's just going to go to waste on my body so I can throw the rest of whatever it is away. which is harsh because, the decisions that capitalism makes us make about all sorts of things are a little weird when you get right down to it.

But here we are. That's the reality I've been in. And so I'm going to be editing my books. I mean, I have a whole line of stuff to edit. I edited these leggings today. I realized that some of the leggings I've been wearing are very pilled, stretched out, and like 20 years old, and I have better options in that same drawer so I can get rid of the pair that served me so well for so long. And I thank everything. I thank everything. Thank you for your service. Thank you for being part of my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I thank everything. Thank you for your service. It's time to move on over and over and over again to my belongings. That helps me. Maybe it'll help you. I don't know. And if I'm tempted to feel bad about it, one of my guidelines as well is fix systems, not people, is to remember that What I'm working on right now is a more manageable system in my apartment. I'm not trying to make myself a better or worse person. I'm not trying to judge myself or indict myself for decisions I made in the past. That makes it harder to make this set of decisions in the present when I try and indict the decisions I made in the past and put them on trial.

It's like I was doing the level best I could then. I am doing the level best I can now. So I do that. Once I'm done, with the closet and the bathroom stuff. There's in here in my office is next up to come. The challenge there is papers. I struggle most with papers. I'm gonna be honest. In terms of the order of my life, beauty and order are important tools for me because I realized recently, I like a bit of clutter. I like covered surfaces. I like having, you know, pink plate and a pink cake stand that I put things on and that's where I store jewelry or whatever.

I like that. But when it becomes too much, I realized recently it doesn't reassure me it actually spurs the anxiety and makes it worse. So the use of order in my life is if I get rid of more of this stuff, if I'm not worried about having to interact with things I don't interact with. which is one of the litmus tests my best friend talks about, is how many items can I interact with? She's like, Betsy, you can interact with successfully with so many more items than I can. She has a very curated home.

But when it reaches a tipping point, then it just spurs anxiety for me. It doesn't settle it, which a little bit of clutter actually does settle my anxiety. I like If I can't see it, it doesn't exist. Whatever neurobiology thing that is for people, if I can't see it, it doesn't exist. So like most of my belongings I can see, and if I can see too many, then the anxiety gets spurred. This was a recent revelation for me. So that's my liminal time. I've been using, you know, listening to audiobooks and music and going through all my belongings has been fantastic.

I also I mean, I did my meditation retreat last Friday. I can talk about that sometime. One of the messages in my meditation retreat was to do larger chunks of meditation time more frequently. I do writing meditation, so this was all writing. So I'll be doing another one in September. Let's see how it goes. But yeah, my rules of engagement apply to how I use my liminal time. and my transitional time and I hope, listen, if you do that please come on this app and let me know. Let me know how that works for you.

I'm very interested in how that works for you.