Day 170/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
One of my greatest discoveries was just how much I had limited myself by submitting to expectations and assumptions.
Opportunities missed, adventures curtailed, support evaporated. Relying on the way life had always been, thinking there was little opportunity for change, or not actually thinking at all. Simply acting out of habitually learned expectations.
Our conditioning, it has so much to answer for. The trouble with being small and impressionable is that we rely heavily on others to show us the way. Then that information, instead o f being stored for only the short period of our dependence, it seems to be stored for the duration of our lifetime until we wake up to the fact and do something about it.
At one of my lowest points, I walked into a bookstore and a paperback feel off the shelves at my feet. I had been asking for some direction in an otherwise directionless life. The title of the book, "Ask and it is Given". A phrase I was familiar with from my Christian upbringing, and an almost unimaginable concept at that time, having recovered from the jab in the foot as it fell, I swooped it up and took it home.
ASK. I had not asked for what I wanted nor needed for as long as I could remember. There was only ever one answer to any request that I could recall, and that answer was NO.
Learning to ask again was a joy and an adventure. And there were many hurdles to overcome, not the least of which was about my worthiness to be heard, let alone to be supported.
I continued to ask.
I asked for support. How to find something, for inspiration, for insights, for learning, for the answer to technical questions, for the right travel agent, for courage to meet my son's teachers with my concerns, for clients and income, for time, for deadline extensions, for credit terms, for overdue payments. I learned to ask, and I kept asking.
Let asking become a way of life. There are no guarantees that you will receive everything you want. Without asking there is certainty that you won't.
Eventually, as you become more proficient at self-mastery, more aligned with your authentic self, your asks will be answered, and more quickly than you can imagine. Along the way you learn to be careful for what you ask for, to think it though, to predict the consequences.
Asking may seem like a mental activity. However it is not a mental activity alone. It also activates physical energetic shifts in spacememory, the fabric of which space is made, to bring you what you ask for. That's a little bit of physics that we know little about yet is as real as the ask itself.
Have fun with this. Be careful what you ask for.
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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