Day 84/366 days Towards Self-Mastery. Mood: Feeling accomplished!
Blues days. Those days when you're mood is through the floor and you just don't know what to do with yourself.
This used to bother me until very recently. Feeling low was uncomfortable, too familiar and I wanted to fix it.
Sometimes I'd turn myself into a pretzel trying to sort out what was bringing me down. Then I learned a few things about blues days; they come and go, they don't last forever, they sometimes have a message and sometimes they belong to someone else.
Sarah suggests that blues days are a natural part of the self-mastery journey.
I would agree.
Allow your down days to be. Give in, stop resisting, have a good cry and take the time to care for yourself during these times.
Good advice. There's no up without down. That's the nature of the duality of our existence. There's no joy without moments of sadness.
Sometimes the reason for your down days may be apparent, other days not.
At times the energy is so full or worry and sadness that it's impossible to feel chirpy, even though the down of the day may not belong to you.
Mostly it will, and it's perfectly okay to just go with the flow. Allow the feelings to come to the surface, sit quietly with them.
Warm baths, cups of tea, time to yourself, a walk in nature, just being with what is. It's enough.
Since I've been taking this appraoch, I have discovered that those down days pass without too much effort. I wonder if sometimes our body and mind just needs to integrate something new and it doesn't always feel flash.
What I'm saying here is be kind to yourself. There's no need to be actively working stuff out all the time. Just allow yourself to be humanly uncomfortable and be okay with that.
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.