Day 144/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
Your style is your masterpiece. Self-mastery is about knowing yourself deeply. Authenticity is about self-expression.
You can use any experience to bring you closer to your self-mastery and authentic self.
At present we are exploring our home as a means of expressing our true style. I'm finding this part of Sarah's inspiration infinitely more inspiring than when we spoke of makeup and fashion. Not because I don't like wearing makeup and looking great, I just find spending weeks on that topic a little tiresome. We already have too much input about our appearances to contend with everyday.
Your home is your masterpiece of personal style.
Or it would be if I had a bank roll that would enable me to go right on out there and buy up all the loveliness that I imagine in my home. Was that your first thought? It used to be mine. I felt incredible hopeless and helpless with all the delectable inspiration from glossy magazines and no ability to recreate them in my own home.
That was until I spent time with ordinary folk doing ordinary things with a lifestyle that I aspired to.
Find a way to inspire you to find your own style for your home.
If you're anything like me you'll love the texture or pen and paper and scrap books and folders of ideas. Take one room at a time and slowly find inspiration from glossy magazines, antique shops, junk stores, cafes that you visit, other peoples homes.
In the ranges east of Melbourne I spent many a weekend decades ago, with a lovely family learning to horse ride on their mountainous property. Grounded and real, these people had created a lifestyle of country comforts and style in their homestead that welcomed visitors and strangers alike.
With the flair of simplicity the magic worked its alchemy of colours and textures and old world charm into a warm and friendly atmosphere. Pots of slow cook meals on the go, the aroma of home cooking bonded the weekends into an enticing refuge from city life.
As I look around my own home and possessions I see the life that I've lived, the places I've travelled, the adventures I've taken, in the items I've chosen to accompany me and my family through life.
Only recently, art pieces were unpacked that had travelled with me home from New Zealand and lay hidden in brown paper and cardboard boxes for some 7 years, to find a place on my walls and in my garden.
My furniture is period to antique wooden pieces of loveliness that welcome my family home. With a little touch of chalk paint here and there or a good polish and adorned with ornaments, books, photographs and candles, these pieces have come alive again to continue to warm my heart and charm those who enter here.
Room by room, bring your style to life as you entice your inner most desires into reality with little more than your loving presence and imagination.
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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