17/366 days Towards Self-Mastery. Status: This evening, I'm beat!
The events of the day have caught up with me and when I'm done with this post, I'm off to the twilight zone.
No wait, that's where I live!
Seriously now, I was leaning into this day's inspiration and the moment I lost concentration I injured myself.
The metaphor of music for the flow of life really appeals to me. We are the music, and we are the dancer. We each dance to our own tune.
Today Sarah goes further and asks me to notice the pauses in the music. Those moments between notes that create a masterpiece when played by an experienced musician, and that lose momentum when navigated by a newbie. It's not something I had considered.
I love today's inspiration
Think of your life as a melody.
As you flow through your day, listen to the notes and mostly, listen in to the pauses. Are those moments in between filled with passion and expectation? Or maybe those moments are filled with something else?
What is your melody? What is the music that reflects your inner most terrain? And what resides in the pauses between the notes?
Yesterday I found myself with idle hands. It doesn't happen very often and I was curious about how my mind went into overdrive trying to figure out what I should be doing. My pauses were filled with anxiety. A programme on auto-run that suddenly stopped running. It felt awkward.
It took effort to bring myself to a place of peace with not one thing to do in that short span of time during a weekday. That right there is a reflection of my conditioned mind.
With today's inspiration, I was able to explore that more consciously. Sitting in stillness, without thought observing the environment, noticing the trees and the activity in the neighbourhood. If I plan it I'm good, but if the spare time arrive unannounced, I struggle. I'm a work in progress on this one.
Preparing meals is also a time when my mind wants to wander instead of staying with what is. Resisting the pause I suspect. Always wanting to be busy.
Today was no exception. My efforts to stay present with my food prep always results in a better quality meal by far. It feels as though I am giving of myself to the ingredients with my focussed attention. It's something I've been efforting with for a while.
My meal almost benefitted from a little extra protein at lunchtime. In a moment of distraction I chopped right into my finger with the biggest man-chef sized chopping knife, and gave myself the fright of my life!
So this post is coming together excruciatingly slowly as I type with one hand more or less out of commission. Bumbling through, using the wrong fingers on the keyboard is resulting in a million typos!
The idea of filling the pause with passion and expectation for the next creative thing is exciting to me. That's going to take allowing peace to fill the space first I suspect, then see what emerges.
Enough today. I'm off to bed with some pain relief to ease my throbbing finger.
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.