Day 256/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
For a very long time the bar was too high. Perfection or die.
Along with everything else I have come to realise about life and living, success is not a black and white proposition.
How we measure success can make a huge difference to our frame of mind, how we navigate hurdles, how we relate to our learning, how we show up in the world generally.
For some, success is about accomplishing a certain financial target, an academic goal, a business milestone.
That kind of success sent me into a tailspin of striving and never arriving. I needed to reassess my story for success if I was going to make anything of this life.
Then success became about small achievements. It became about learning from my mistakes, taking a forward step towards a life goal, discovering a new learning, inner examination and exploration and celebrating every new discovery that separated me from my vision and my passion.
Breaking it down into bite size pieces helped me to negotiate an inner story that confounded my efforts. A story that had ambition and drive on the one hand, and a fear of not being good enough on the other. Two polar opposites battling it out in the recesses of my psyche and keeping me exactly where I was.
Oh how simple when you know what it is. Most of my life I've been unaware of these two stories, hinged only to the drive and frustrated at not making progress, and feeling that success is out of my reach.
The truth is that most all of us have polar opposites at play. We call them inner conflicts. It perfectly explains the struggle to get anywhere we dream of being.
I've become an expert at supporting clients to recognise their polar opposites, their polarities. How exciting it is when the light bulb lights up as they recognise what's going on there.
Every new discovery is new information to work with to settle the inner conflicts and live more authentically as the you that you know yourself to be. For me, that's success.
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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