Tag: spiritual journey

The D Word

Discipline.

Are you a disciplined person? I can’t decide if I am. I think I many ways, I am but in perhaps MORE ways, I am most certainly not.

I’m a strong starter but my follow-through is sometimes lacking. It doesn’t take much discipline to START projects. It does, however, take much more discipline to FINISH.

In school, I always started off the term gangbusters! Fully organized with my colour-coded binder and pens. The ultimate note-taker complete with perfect penmanship. After a few months (weeks?) the penmanship would turn to chicken scratch and the colour coding ship had long since sailed.

In many ways, I’ve overcome these counterproductive habits with far better ones. For example, I’ve run several half marathons, most of which I entered into fully trained and felt strong from start to finish. I’ve set all kinds of fitness and work goals and put the work in to complete them successfully. I’m proud of all those achievements where my outcomes were concrete.

But what about those “projects” that were just for my own personal development? The ones that no one witnesses and of which there were no tangible outcomes?

Meditation.

Spiritual practices.

Connection with a higher self.

These are all areas where a strong sense of discipline and consistency pay dividends. Also, all are practices that my discipline falls short. There’s no score kept and no one knows if I’m falling short of my goal, so it’s easy to let it slip by the wayside.

So! I’m holding myself accountable and inviting YOU to join me in accountability. I’m going to embark on a 30-day meditation challenge starting TODAY.

I’ll be using the Headspace app to guide me and plan to allot anywhere from five- to ten-minutes most days and one 20-minute meditation weekly.

I’m looking forward to discovering what a consistent effort in this arena will do for my mental health and spiritual wellness.

What about you? Do you meditate? What’s your experience been like? Don’t meditate and want to join me? Please do! I’ll post regular mini updates on my IG @alisonaugust and weekly blog post updates right here.

I’d say wish me luck but luck has nothing to do with discipline, so I won’t. 😉

A.

Eliminating Comparisons and Finding Contentment

Me, finding joy in front of my messy/beautiful garden and my in-need-of-new-paint house.

You know the that old saying, right? Comparison is the thief of joy. Lately, I’ve been on a real comparison jag, and I can definitely attest to the joy thievery. It’s a nasty habit that just seems to subtly slip in the side door when I’m not vigilant. Next thing you know, I’m longingly looking at someone else’s reality assuming their grass is greener, their kids better “behaved” (whatever that actually means), their success more valuable, and their lives are just generally more charmed than mine.

And frankly, my life is pretty damned charmed. So what gives?

It all comes back to staying in my own lane. I have forever looked at other people’s successes, or perceived successes, and felt somehow inadeqate next to them. Even when what they have doesn’t line up with my own aspirations. Like the beautiful lawyer friend. Or the teacher with summers off to enjoy her family. Or the stay at home mom. The yogi. The athlete. The intellect. All have looked appealing to me over the years and had me wishing I could trade spots and live their life for a while, just to see how it fits. “Maybe if I had what they have, I’d be happier…?”

But then where would I be? I’d be trying to live someone else’s idea of happiness instead of forging my own. And that just won’t work.

I wrote about in a recent post that if I want to find fulfillment, I need to create it for myself each day. It doesn’t matter if I am bagging groceries, living that #momlife, or climbing the corporate ladder, if I’m always looking around at others and comparing my life to theirs, satisfaction will always be at arm’s length.

Sometimes I think I seem to just write about the same thing over and over in this little blog. How to practise gratitude. How to live a life free of fear. How to feel whole and happy. These themes are just so reoccurring in my life. It’s not that I actually have an authority on “how to” do any of these things. It’s more that I’m trying to figure it out as I go along. Writing about it seems to help.

There are days that I feel like the latest bloomer who ever lived. Especially when I see women 10 or 15 years my junior out their KILLING IT in their careers. But then there I go again with comparisons… I wouldn’t be who I am today had I not taken the long scenic way around the mountain. And I wouldn’t trade my past, however difficult it was at times, for anything.

In this world of social media, it almost feels impossible some days NOT to make comparisons. There’s a saying I learned in recovery that goes, “I was comparing my insides to other people’s outsides.” There’s a lot of variability from most people’s insides to what they show you on the outside and even more variables when it comes to what they post on social media.

Practicing non-comparison is vigilant work in this day of Instagram and influencers. I am one who can be easily influenced, so it’s so important that I stay in my yard and admire my own messy, full-of-weeds garden. Otherwise I’m headed for trouble.

Maybe some of you can relate. Just a reminder that your garden is beautiful whether it’s manicured or overgrown with dandelions.

Thanks for popping on, friends.