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“Practice Makes Perfect”

I have been at this junction in my life so many times and I’m asking myself the same question I have asked myself a million times.

Why am I not the person I want to be, the person I know for a fact I’m supposed to be and the person I know I can be?

Don’t get me wrong, I love life and I love my life but I don’t feel like I’m making the most of it. This is a confronting statement which begs the question, if I am not entirely happy with who I am and what I’m doing then what is it that will bring the required change and how would I like to see myself? Which set of circumstances, habits or emotions will let me feel the way I think I will feel when “I’m making the most of my life”?

I have to keep reminding myself that the purpose for starting this blog is for self discovery and a platform where I can share. By sharing I know it will help me grow and find my way.

I talk about “change” allot because I aspire to be a better version of myself, however I find the subject to be a contentious one. I don’t understand why changing for the better is so difficult and I don’t understand why most people that I know have some sort of self destructive behaviour causing havoc in their lives. We know what these things are, we are all familiar with these issues in our lives, because for most of us we have been battling with this for a long time. Yet we continue these behaviours regardless of the obvious consequences to ourselves and others.

“We just can’t help ourselves” ! Is this the truth? Should I accept that “people don’t change and abandon all hope?

I talk about habits like it is a force beyond my control which can only be defeated by attaining Superhero abilities. No wonder I despair when I have to face these perceived villains in my life which gives me the the feeling I would get when I didn’t study for a test and decided to wing it…

I realised that I have given change way too much power over my life. I fear change because it has defeated and humiliated me so many times that I have submitted to it. I have convinced myself that only by the way of enlightenment or by having some special knowledge or spiritual revelation will I find they key to finally bring lasting change to my life and become the person I think I am supposed to be.

Like the word impeachment to Donald Trump. Fear “Is a disgusting dirty word” and the only thing that has power over fear is when you can find your Truth.

I have to constantly remind myself that I’m not going to see change in my life by fuelling my fear and insecurity of who I am not and who I am striving to become. Rather I have to face my fear of who I am and I can only find myself and love myself if I am truthful with myself.

It`s my a choice to be truthful with myself and to engage change with logic and common sense. For me this means that I have to take action in order to see change and I have to call out my own bullshit. I have to create a constant awareness of the both the values and goals that I want represented in my life and the bullshit I have been hanging on to.

Today I’m reminding myself to take action, any action and put in the work if I want to change. To Ask for help or go and get help if I’m unequipped to deal with some of the issues in my life. As cliché as it sounds, change happens with a first step, its happening right now by writing this blog or by buying a book or going for a walk or just allowing myself some piece and quiet for a few minutes so you can figure out what I want and what I need.

It does not happen somewhere in the past or somewhere in the future, it happens in every moment in my life where I make the decision to be present and to act with purpose.

I choose to practice change and compassion for myself in each and every moment.

Liberating you from yourself

“Feeling are designed by natural selection to represent judgements about things, evaluation of them. Natural selection wants you to experience things as either good or bad. The Buddha believed that the less you judge things, including the contents of your mind the more clearly you will see them and the less deluded you will be.”

Robert Wright

Meditation in the Morning

This morning i woke up a bit differently to what i normally do. My cat called “Django” had a run in with our neighbours cat just before the sun started rising, so i was awake earlier than normal. When my wife got back in bed she expected to be able to go back to sleep but i was tossing and turning and annoying her with my fiddling. Anyway she got annoyed and jumped up giving me a hard time and i continued to tease her and had a good laugh. Despite her annoyance with me she got back in bed and is still sleeping while im now writing this.

I got up out of bed and proceeded with my morning routine of feeding our fresh new little kitten. China, i love her. Yes, we called our cat China. Then i took a shower, made myself a cup of coffee and sat down in front of my computer like i would normally do. However instead of starting with work i had the need for a guided meditation. It took some convincing that i had the time to do a 10 min guided meditation but i gave in and went ahead.

When done, i opened my eyes and wrote in my first language “So lekker oggend ! Ek het so lekker wakker geword en gemeditate. Ek love dit!.” Which translates to “Such a nice morning. Woke up so well and meditated, i love it.”

Doing a Meditation in the morning always surprises me, it just makes me feel so balanced and ready. It reveals my burdens and my fears to me and it shows me that i have the power in me to release myself from those chains. Meditation brings clarity to me, it creates a foundation for my day through an awareness of what i am and what i am not. It reminds me what i want to be and how i want to be. Meditation untangles things you didn’t realise needs untangling.

I made another discovery about myself this morning. By waking up happy, having a laugh and being playful and childish my morning turned out much differently than it normally does.

Have i forgotten that I Have a Choice ?

I can definitely do with more laughter, love and freedom in my life.

That is what i Choose!