sno 45

Have you accidentally looked into the sun or bright light and then looked away, and the image burned into your eyelids? That’s an afterimage.

I’ve been invited back to the writing course that helped me conceive Afterimage. Over the next five weeks, I expect to be exposed to new ideas and approaches to writing and opportunities to write from new perspectives. I'm curious as to how this will shape Afterimage. Thanks for being here with me!

If you’re interested in exploring the course, find it here.

Here's what I saw, heard, or sensed that’s stayed with me the past week. Let’s begin.

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What I heard: One and a Thousand Hours.

Watching my moody, sullen teenage daughter struggle to regulate her emotions and communicate with me made me pause. Her sleep is erratic; her screentime count is well over anything you’d imagine. She eats junk food diligently as if they were supplements.

Go figure.

We are what we… consume. I had a compulsive need to spell it all out to her. But just before starting, I felt an internal brake. Halt! Was there anything I wanted to work on? Any changes I wanted to make for myself?

That night, instead of confronting my daughter with the “Lights out at 10. You are going to bed at 10:30” lecture, I used early bedtime as a prescription for myself.

:::

Usually, my bedtime is past midnight. Would going to bed early make me more patient? Less irritable? Will it give me more bandwidth? I went to bed again at 10:30 the following night. And the night after that.

After three days of early-to-bed, early-to-rise, a funny thing happened: other "clean" habits started cascading one after the other. They followed what I wanted to force my daughter to do: limiting my time on social media and eating well. So I decided to experiment and limit my social media time to fifteen minutes each at 2 PM and 7 PM and eliminate/avoid food said to cause inflammation: gluten, dairy, caffeine, and added sugars.

My daughter doesn't drink (she's fourteen); I last had one in January. We are both physically active, so no new effort is needed there.

I feel bright, energetic, clear-headed, more patient, less irritable, and have more capacity for hard things. I'm beaming. I have all the markings of my viceless (and unboring!) ten days.

But what I heard at our family meeting today was even better.

:::

For about half an hour on Saturday mornings, my daughter and I review the past week, look forward to the week ahead, and set intentions and actions for the week.

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This week’s goal:

“I don’t feel good about being on TikTok for three hours every day. This week, I’m going to bring it down to one.”

Eureka. My daughter said it, not me.

My brother called at the end of the family meeting, as if on cue. He and my daughter did the math: 3 hours of TikTok x 7 days a week=, call it twenty. Fifty-two weeks in a year:

A thousand hours.

Like the “If you had a million dollars, how would you spend it?” question, he asked who she wanted to spend those thousand hours with. What she'd spend it on. How much money could she make in those thousand hours once she's old enough to work? What could she do with that time and money? What could she discover and explore at that time? What could she get into? What could she grow into? What would the world look like after a thousand hours?

Who could she become in a thousand hours?

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Afterthought

The Weekend Check-in is a relic of something I started with my daughter’s dad when we were in the thick of our divorce. It was an attempt to contain the hard conversations around time and money, and minimize the amount of time we spent in direct conflict.

Today, it’s just my daughter and me. It’s still a way to contain potential thorns or differences in approach around operations at home, but it’s evolved since the early days.

The most significant change evolved from a transactional swap of schedules and reading our spending and savings aloud to something more connective and interdependent. Today, it's a check-in, looking back and looking forward together, reflecting and seeing where we are based on aspects of the week, from both qualitative and quantitative perspectives.

It’s a powerful way to understand what’s behind our behavior and a way to build collaboration.

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Practice: The Weekend Check-In

This practice offers families, couples, and you a chance to listen, be heard, and be understood by each other. It allows us to co-regulate as we step over the threshold of one week into the next.

It also clarifies and helps align the logistical expectations, criteria, and specific support needed for each person to create a fulfilling week.

You'll set aside 30-40 minutes in the beginning. The meeting will evolve. Over time, you'll find the right amount of time for you. Some families spend thirty minutes. Some couples spend twenty. Others spend forty. You can design monthly meetings as well.

You will add the questions that matter to you to make this a connective experience with your family or partner, and yourself.

Here is the script. Enjoy.

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A question for you: What did your week look like? What’s something you’re proud of? What or who you’re grateful for? What are you looking forward to this coming week?

What quantitative metrics you'd like to keep an eye on this week? What will it tell you?

How are you going to make this a great week? Who can you ask to support you to make it happen?

Tell me. And tell someone you love.