Day 44/366 days Towards Self-Mastery. Mood: I've got this!
You have a priceless point of view. Okay nice catchy phrase. How does it help me?
Today I'm feeling into the challenge and I'm going to share a real story, direct from today's experience with my very own therapist. She and I have covered more ground and resolved more inner turmoil in the last 3 years than I have in the last 60 altogether. When you find a good therapist, stick with them.
In honesty I want to cut to the chase with this challenge.
Now ,I know that most of these daily challenges are inspirational at best, but today's is seriously of little use if you have an old story that's put the breaks on you ever reaching your potential. Sarah forgive me. Our experiences may diverge here.
Maybe you think you have already reached your potential. I'm guessing though, that if you're reading this you're still striving, yearning, dreaming, and doing.
According to Sarah, we'll eventually discover that our unique point of view is priceless. It's worth getting it out there. Sarah says it's like finding a fortune in the pocket of an old coat.
Today's challenge is about reminding yourself that you have a unique point of view
Get a bunch of $5 notes and put them into every purse, coat pocket, jean pockets and others, then forget about them. Then when you find one again, you'll be reminded to trust your unique point of view.
While you're at it, treat yourself today. Give yourself a little love.
So I treated myself to a session with my therapist, and here's why.
Unless your potential was fully supported in your younger years. Unless you were encouraged, given every opportunity, celebrated and accomplished through your early years, a $5 reminder is going to do Jack shit for your potential.
Recently I began to feel the deep, dark, inner sinking feeling of hopelessness as I began to prepare for this last year of my Master's degree. It's a pattern that I am very familiar with. On the home stretch the self-sabotage begins. I generally meet up with the finish line, however that home stretch can be excruciating.
It taken every bit of positive self-talk, mindset management and gut determination to keep going, to overcome every sabotaging event that ever shown up. I've crawled over the finish line with broken bones, fought my way through violent relationships, walked miles to exams when my car broke down, defended myself from sexual predators, and smoked myself into oblivion to get over that finish line.
Vaguely knowing where it started didn't seem to help much.
In therapy today my therapist and I revisited my 13 year old self. Actually she showed up with no invitation at all. She was in her school uniform, head down, given opportunity after opportunity, and feeling completely hopeless knowing that she would not be allowed to pursue any of them.
That sick, deep, dark, feeling arrived as she realised that there was no way on God's green earth that she would be allowed to join the softball team, take an extracurricular art course, put in the extra time to perfect her golf swing, spend time out of school with friends, join a class social event, have a friend over for the weekend, learn to play tennis, go to the rugby with her brother, meet up with a boyfriend.
That 13 year old's experience was still being experienced today, 50 years later. If you want to know what limits your potential, that's it right there. Old experiences that are still in your experience today.
The key is discovering how they are affecting you now. And that is something that therapy is good at. That is what therapy is for. All the mindset management, positive self-talk, incentive management, affirmations and any other BS you want to throw at it will not make one bit of difference if you don't explore the detail of the experience and how it's affecting you today.
And when you do, the realisations in the detail will set you free. Some of it's cognitive. Much of it is a shift in the field of energy and information. The magic stuff of consciousness that we don't yet have words for, so we call it awareness.
So let's ask that question again. Have you reached even close to your potential? If not, go find out what's there sabotaging your progress. What's limiting your self-belief, informing your choices and actions in spite of your best intentions?
That 13 year old self felt seen, heard and celebrated for the first time right there in therapy today. That's priceless.
What else is possible? I'm so excited for this year's potentials. It's my right to shine. It's my time. It's my right to bring my point of view to the world.
How are you doing? Get in touch if you want to talk it through.
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.