Day 69/366 days Towards Self-Mastery. Mood: the Coronavirus COVID-19 has just arrived in our small community so I'm feeling into how I feel about that.
Connecting with and projecting your authentic self. Sometimes this daily practice of journeying towards self-mastery takes my breath away.
It's a salient reminder that even though this challenge is set up as daily inspirations by Sarah in her book, Simple Abundance, there's no way on God's green earth that you can meet each of these challenges in a day or even in a year.
Case in point, today's challenge.
Projecting your inner most self through the way that you present yourself, outfit, makeup, the way you wear your hair.
Today's inspiration is to examine how you currently project yourself
If we don't know how to put together our outside appearance, Sarah reassures us that there's someone who does. That someone is our inner most authentic self.
Take a few magazines and find images of outfits, style, and presentation that you really love, that sing to your soul. Cut them out and paste them in your journal.
Once you begin to see that your most desired style is not how you are presenting yourself, make a promise to yourself that from now on you will do without, rather than buy another item that you don't simply love.
My own aspiration for my style definitely comes and goes in waves. There'll be times when I'm right on point, wearing what I love and feeling the confidence inside and out.
Then there might be a life change, and I lose some of that confidence and my style turn to rubbish again for a while.
It doesn't matter if my wardrobe is full of stuff I love, if I'm not feeling it, I can't wear it. That day I might sneak out in an invisible black to bend into the shadows so no one notices me.
Then as I regain my confidence I'm going for the flowing pink that shouts out loud and clear, "I've arrived!"
Black and vanilla is an all time favourite combo for me, in sleek suit pants and silk tops. Then I have a penchant for loud and bright coloured jackets and funky boots.
Elegant and sometimes glitzy evening gowns, bohemian day dresses, and oversized men's sweaters on jeans.
When it comes to a style you could only describe mine as eclectic. I'm good with that. No fashion rules here.
The point of this exercise is, I think, to find what you love. Have fun with it. Give it a go. Forget about how you should look and show up as you feel you want to. If you can do that, even in small steps, especially in small steps, you'll begin to connect with your authenticity.
The challenge comes when it's dressing for work. There might be rules, and if there aren't there are still unwritten social rules that are darned hard to break. There's nothing I admire more than someone who has broken through those expectations and shows up authentically as themselves.
Age helps. As I get older I care less about what the rules are and what people think. I'm enjoying that!
Or you could get some help from an expert to meld your style into something that works for your clients.
It might be time to take another look at your makeup. Are you still applying the same look as you did 20 years ago? Seriously, it took me a while to vary my look to better suit my age. You know, habits. They die hard. And it takes forever to form new ones.
And I wore a bob hairstyle for a hundred years! As a fashion piece it came and went and came and went again and I was still wearing it.
Have fun with this. Cutting and pasting I'll leave. My preference is to give Pinterest a good workout. Set up a board especially for the "new you" and collect from the massive collection that Pinterest offers. I'm loving my Pinterest boards around style. I have one called "love vintage style", and another "professional therapist". Next I think it will be "boldy boho".
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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