Day 284/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
We travel through life without a second thought to the preciousness of this glorious new day. We daydream our way through life, or worse, move through the day completely distracted by devices or meaningless work, going through the motions, and we call it living.
When we don't touch life, when we deny its existence, when we take it for granted that there will be another tomorrow, something is going to give. And nine times out of ten, that something is going to be your health.
Is it inevitable that you should grow into illness and disease, because that's what happens as you age?
I know that there is very little that I can do or say that will convince you to look up and see and experience life any differently to the comfort zone that you have achieved.
Personally, I didn't want to wait that long. Fortunately I had a driving force to understand life, so learned early if I was going to understand it I'd better figure out how to engage with it.
One experience after another, I kept reaching for the touch of life that seeped through to my very soul. A life limited by adverse and traumatising childhood experiences didn't help me connect with the world. The more numb I felt, the harder I tried.
Eventually I broke through that deadened feeling of being a robo-human, and began to live and experience the joy of even the simplest forms of life.
An inset, a bird, or a snake will cross my path to show me the magnificence of life all around me.
A flower or simply new leaves shooting from the top of saplings in the warm spring weather shows me that life is eternal and ready and willing to thrive.
A conversation with a young man who is bringing 3 hours of gym training into his day so that he can feel the majesty of his healthy and vital body.
A walk to work so that I can experience the aura of the trees, the sounds of the babbling brook, the plop of platypus or water dragons into the water from the creek bank.
Don't wait for that something to come into your life to inspire you to wake up. There's never been a more important time to connect with life, to become fully alive.
I hope that you will spend this time well. If you have lost your job to Covid, I hope that you will see it as an opportunity to reset and connect from a different perspective. Your world, and life itself needs you.
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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