Day 350/366 days Towards Self-Mastery.
It's true that we become older and wiser. And it's painfully difficult to watch a young person grapple with life feeling like they are passed it, missing out, missed the boat.
How do you tell a young person that their life has so much more potential than they are currently realising?
When I was younger, I always wanted to be older. I wanted to grasp whatever it was that I thought advanced years brought me. After each birthday I would say I was a year older. After turning 22, I'd be 23. After turning 32 I'd be 33. It always seemed important to stretch to the following year.
Nowadays I forget how old I am, often struggling to do the math to pin it down. The thoughts of age and reaching for something in the future are no longer a feature of my life. When did that change?
Yet when I look in the mirror I have to linger a while to really notice the signs of age that are upon me. What must I look like to younger people? I'm definitely ageing. My face and my body are showing the signs of skin not fitting well, muscles not a taut as they once were. My hair is almost completely grey. I struggle with doing things that were once a breeze.
Sometimes I can look at myself in the mirror with kind eyes, other times with despair.
My body is not me, my mind is not me. I have them to use for a period of time and that is all. They wear out. How much more time will they give me? Let me care for them as best I can as we move closer to departing each other's company.
I'm entering the 3rd Act. The time when I'm supposed to be retiring and enjoying the fruits of a lifetime of my labours. I decided not to subscribe to this way of thinking, and began to enjoy life a whole lot earlier. Trusting that life will provide for my needs was and is a big part of that picture.
Recently I completed a Masters degree in Psychotherapy. A new beginning you might say. I'm looking forward to supporting people who feel overwhelmed and hammered by the stresses of life and the system they willingly and unwittingly subscribed to. It's madness the way we have structured our lives. And it results in poor mental and emotional health for even the most educated and wealthy, let alone those on the bottom of the heap.
Now I'm searching for the opportunities to use these skills for the betterment of humanity. And I'll continue to use them for as long as I possibly can. I have a lot of life in me and I intend to use it to see what else is possible.
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.