One Bite at a Time Soil-less Gardens Series, Part 9
DDP Mistakes and Talking to Your Team
from the Question Line Duo
It's been a while since we've posted a new installment to our Soil-less Garden Series. And over these winter months many of you have forged ahead with your soil-less garden projects, sometimes calling us on the Question Hot Line to clear up confusion and figure out what to do next. Often our answers include, "Say what you mean." and "Talk to your team."
Your voice, actions, PKTT and your intuition are everything you need to communicate with nature and your soil-less garden team. This still seems to be the biggest roadblock in soil-less gardens (SLGs). You need to talk to your team.
A lot of us seem to feel we have to work harder, spend more time and struggle in order to move forward with our SLG (and life in general). Yes, effort is involved, attention and care is needed, but often it's not the kind of effort we imagine that is required to move our project forward.
We, the "mighty" QL duo, struggle with our soil-less gardens too. At times we have both had incredible, mind-blowing successes with projects. At other times, we've come to gentle, simple, perfect resolutions that just easily develop. And sometimes . . . well, sometimes we'll bang our head against the wall, wonder why our project feels so stuck and not make the time to address the SLG or check in with our team. Team. When we activate a soil-less garden, we create a team.
To help you with this, we're going to occasionally talk about our failures and give you some personal examples of not communicating or working well with our SLGs.
Today's example from Beth is one you may relate to. If you can't relate directly, you'll at least be assured that you're not the only one to make mistakes. And no mistake should stop you from trying.
If you're new to Perelandra and learning about this for the first time, you can get started here:
One Bite at a Time Series: Soil-less Gardens »
Example #1:
Plane Travel, Air B&B and a Wedding
This one started out easily enough. I had plenty of time to prepare, and I thought it might make a good "short term project" example for this series.
This was my DDP:
A safe, easy, enjoyable trip to California to attend my brother's wedding.
To celebrate and support this milestone in his life with our family.
Departing February 1st and returning February 5th.
For the Starting Process, I declared my intent, shifted ETS for Soil-less Gardens and ETS for Soil, and then tested for and shifted Essence of Perelandra (EoP). This took about 20 minutes total, and then I was interrupted. I excused myself, closed the coning and went to take care of the emergency.
Mistake #1: I didn't establish a dedicated time for the Starting Process to activate the project. All I'd need was an hour, maybe an hour and a half at most. Instead, I sneaked the meeting into the day and never mentioned to my partner that I'd be working on a project and unavailable for a while. So he didn't know that it wasn't the best time to clear the creosote out of the chimney, get stuck and call for help.
Mistake #2: I never came back that day, or the next day, to finish the activation, never did the Calibration or the Troubleshooting. Instead, I went into panic mode and was comically (but not disastrously) dysfunctional in the week leading up to the trip.
Mistake #3: I didn't say anything to the team about my secondary intent to offer up the experience as an example to folks reading this series. By not acknowledging that, I was adding another layer of pressure to myself and not giving nature or the rest of the team an opportunity to help me address this "side order" within the balance and structure of the project.
Mistake #4: I used a white-washed DDP that aimed for "workable" instead of saying what I actually meant, or why I wanted to set up a soil-less garden project in the first place. If I saw anyone else do this, I would have known immediately that the person was only partially engaged in the process.
Mistake #5: I could have started the project when I first bought the tickets. I knew the trip presented significant challenges for me — time off from my job, travelling, airport security, airplanes, being in close quarters with strangers on an airplane, peacefully interacting with family where there was a long, complicated history — you know, normal stuff. Instead, I waited until just a couple weeks before it was time to leave — when I was already half-way down the freak-out rabbit hole.
What Happened: As I was packing, I got my head about me enough to stop and take EoP for my "overall balance and well being" and then "to help me be present, enjoy the experience and not freak out during this trip." I continued taking ETS for Humans daily, and taking EoP for these two focuses daily.
I also shifted EoP to the Air B&B where I was staying with some of my family members. Just for the "general balance and well-being of this environment while we're staying here and responsible for its care."
I didn't accomplish everything I'd hoped for, not by a long-shot. The wedding and the way we came together as a family to support them was a success. I'd made it through and managed to stay present, but I missed some cues that could have made it better.
Below is the DDP I would have declared, if I was being honest and fully engaged when I started. (Said another way: If I hadn't half-assed it and started sabotaging my own success.)
Five day trip to California to attend my brother's wedding. Departing February 1st and returning February 5th.
I want to celebrate and support this milestone in his life with our family.
I want to travel safely and enjoy the experience.
I don't want to get caught up in weird family dynamics and dysfunction.
I want to stay centered and engaged with the things that matter most:
1) Spending time with my siblings, mom, niece and nephew.
2) Touching base with my step-mom and, if she's open to it, have a meal and conversation with her.
Then, after the SLG project coning was open and I'd stated my DDP and before moving on to the Starting Process, I should have let the coning know that I had this other thought in the back of my mind — to use this as a short-term project example for folks following the SLG series — and ask them if I should include that in the DDP.
One big consideration that helped me get clear on what my DDP should have been was something I say to Question Line callers all the time — ask yourself why you want to work with nature and the White Brotherhood on this goal. My answer to that question was: I knew I didn't want to go about this trip in the same way I always had. I knew that there was a better way to do it. And I knew that when it came to a better, more balanced way to do something, working with nature was the way to go.