regenerate

Yes, this is late (sorry!) but better late than never right?:

Wrap-up of 2: Joy & Acceptance

The interesting thing I’ve been noticing about this project is that I reap the benefits of it mostly towards the end of the week or in the week following. For example, last week I found it a lot easier to focus on Giving & Gratitude – those things were still on my mind. I had a lot of difficulty with Joy & Acceptance in the beginning of the week (it was starting to feel like I was focussing on Stress & Resistance srsly) but towards the end, everything just sort of flowed and came a lot easier and more naturally.

I always get to a point where I get frustrated and angry, and it seems either forced or silly trying to keep up with this. But usually it’s just after I get past that point that things start to get easy. By the end of the week it was easier to enjoy the things I had to do.

Two weeks ago I went into the weekend feeling great and thinking that I made a lot of progress that week. Last Friday I felt kind of awful like I made no progress at all, and today I feel good again – like I’ve made major progress in the past week. Increasingly, I’m beginning to feel that this is just life – there are on periods and there are off periods. There are times I feel great and times I just want to be quiet and alone. For some reason I favour one state of being over the other – and I think that attachment to certain states is probably what causes dissatisfaction when perhaps no one state is preferable to another. I think about this and just let things be. Increasingly, I just enjoy the ride and I find that life surprises me more and more and gets a lot easier to deal with.

3: Courage & Self-awareness

I want the courage to:

• go for what I want and what I think will make me happy
• express myself freely – regardless of whether others will like what I say or not
• live the life that I want, regardless of others’ expectations
• be absolutely free of unnecessary social pressures
• give truly and freely – without the constant worry about compensation
• be who I am – completely unapologetically and unself-consciously

I’m interested in creating a life for myself that I love, and this requires courage because I find myself constantly having to break new ground. There is definitely fear when you’re breaking from everything you once knew and learning to think for yourself, when familiarity ceases to exist and you constantly find yourself out of your comfort zone… However the interesting thing is that you also find things like courage and joy and great love. And you’re guaranteed to grow like never before.

Regarding self-awareness, the first thing I want to do this week is to bring back my meditation practice. I don’t meditate for very long stretches of time, but the regularity of the practice (twice a day, immediately upon waking and just before bed) is something that really grounds me and helps me when I’m going through periods of great change. I love change because I love the feeling of growth, but some changes can be incredibly difficult to deal with. I feel that meditation really helps this process – probably in ways that I can’t really understand! All I know is that it works really well for me and I usually recommend it to people.

Reading this definition of self-awareness as opposed to self-consciousness is what started me thinking about the topic:

“Self -awareness is really about an internal locus of control. It is making decisions and trusting your own intuition. Self-consciousness very often is defined as having an unusually high focus on what others think of you. People who are self-conscious very often have difficulty in making decisions and taking actions. They are prone to a great deal of guilt and shame – based behaviors Consequently, self-awareness is simply a healthier approach to dealing with issues. Remember, you are not your thoughts , feelings, or experiences; you are the awareness of each of those.”
- from this excellent article on selfcounseling.com

I want to remember and be aware that I am not this body, but the power that animates this body. The awareness that moves it. I am not the thoughts but the thinker. I want to learn how to use my mind constructively, and perhaps more importantly – I don’t always want to be in my mind. There is so much more to life than just mind. Even though I love using my mind to read, consider and process things, I really want to experience life fully and do other things that make me feel good.

I’m going to stick with these two topics till this Sunday – a little longer than a week, but I feel like I really want a good amount of time to focus on courage & self-awareness because they are so important to me at this point in time. I will write as frequently as I can – I hope to discover something new every day.