Day 198/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
Anything that motivates striving makes me suspicious. It could be that I've overdosed on striving in my life, or it could be that the motivations towards striving felt manipulative and inauthentic.
My memories of gold stars are few. Mainly those memories are of my son coming home in tears because he was the only kid in the class who didn't have a line of gold stars on the class accomplishment chart.
My own striving was motivated by withdrawal and feelings of abandonment. That never-being-good-enough feeling, to attract the attention and care that every child needs and seeks.
Today I reject the notion of striving. To me life unfolds in natural wonder. My inspiration comes from nature. Do you see nature striving or do you see nature responding to what is, and unfolding as it can, given its situation and circumstances. In my experience, that is how life is for me as well when I allow it.
For this reason it's important for me to surround myself with the beauty and creativity I want to experience in life. I want my environment to reflect the beauty that's inside me. It's a work in progress and I make that progress happen through being present and choosing creativity in small increments in the moments of living life.
Striving to me is about pushing against what is. I'm not into that any longer. Enough already.
Today I choose to live creatively. Let's see what emerges. The only gold stars that I'll receive are the ones I give myself by feeling fully aligned with what is.
366 days Towards Self-Mastery
When I considered my New Year's intentions for 2020 I had just one: To allow my heart to love what it loved...and let it lead me. (If not now, then when?)
I've spent months working on integrating my life. To live life more fully with my home life, my interests, my work, my responsibilities, all coming together, all connected. I want to give each the attention that they desire and need, and still have time and energy for the others. That means living and working from the heart.
As I was clearing out my bookshelf over the Christmas break I discovered Simple Abundance. I set it aside to explore it on New Year's Day as I lazed through another delicious day of nothingness. Sarah, the author, says this book is about living in grace. Living in grace I realised, is about Self-Mastery.
My thirst for understanding the human condition has driven me all my life, and hand-in-hand with self-mastery it has been a life-long goal. And seeing as I love to write, that living in grace is about self-mastery, and I love a bit of a challenge, then if I am truly going to let my heart lead, I really don't have any other choice. So scary as it feels, I'm starting out on a daily mission of leaning into the suggestions of this daybook and making a daily post to keep me accountable. If not now, then when?
I'm Josie. You can find out a little more about me here.
Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy: by Sarah Ban Breathnach.
This book is written for the Australian and NZ market because it refers to seasonal changes. It's available on Amazon here if you'd like to follow along.
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