Day 328/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
Illness is an indication that the path we're on or have been on is not serving us well. Sooner or later we're going to wake up to this simple truth.
In 1976 with the advent of self-help books pioneered by Louise Hay's first book, Heal Your Body, we began to hear about the mind, body, spirit/energy connection. Today there is more understanding about this important connection, with more awareness and presence directed to it every day.
Yet even then, the old-fashioned kind of doctor that we don't see today was aware that stress in your life impacted your health.
Yesterday I wrote about our body's natural drive to thrive. Everywhere in nature you see evidence of this drive to thrive. We are nature. We might be a higher order of nature than our animal and plant companions, but nature we are.
There is more to health and wellness than what you read about or hear about from someone health and well-being advice, including mine! There is your body striving and driving you to well-being with every cell available to communicate the message with you if you could only learn to listen.
When we are unwell our focus and attention turns to our illness. That's a little like closing the gate after the horse has bolted. When it's become a physical manifestation affecting a part of your body, you know that you've been in trouble for a while, a long while. Of course you have to seek medical attention to support you at that time, and ongoing if need be.
It's a great idea to listen to your body earlier than that.
The trouble is, often our lifestyles don't allow us the time to really focus on our own best interests. For all sorts of reasons including that we feel selfish if we put ourselves first, we attend to everyone and everything else and fall into bed each night exhausted.
And to cap it off, we've come to believe that we will get ill as we get older and we will die from ill health anyway so we accept it when it comes along. Which is always later in life because, coincidentally, it takes a few decades to get progressively worse.
Crikey, that's a road I don't want to travel, and I've had a chronic illness since I was 6 years old. Well, like I said, it started earlier than that but I wasn't in a position to care for myself so here we are.
However, when I learned to quit focussing on trying to cure myself and start focussing on my inner world and what was driving me and why I wasn't headed in the direction of thriving, I began to uncover a whole raft of things, stories, beliefs, ways of doing life that needed my attention.
Yes I take medications to support me. And with each new realisation and undoing of passed trauma and ill-serving beliefs I change direction to the flow of thriving, and my condition improves.
So take a serious look at your lifestyle. Ask yourself a few important questions about whether it is supporting you to thrive. Check in with your body regularly and at least daily and ask it, are we thriving? What can I do to support every cell in my body to thrive? What's the next step?
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.