Sunday, August 5, 2012

Patience with small details… Rumi




I don’t recall where I read this bit of quote, but I DO know that it gives me that “structure, a trellis around which the grapevines of my work can grow…” that Molly Gordon speaks of in her Vision Interview with Cigdem Kobu in Module 31: Habits.

A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com is a whole lot about small details. For me anyway. It is about making myself aware of my habits and practises, BEing kind to/with myself when I discover I’m in my own way, and allowing for the very intimacy of BEing fully ME to envelope me, no apologising, justifying, or explaining required.

But what is most important and I think has been affirmed for me in this Module is that Habits Are Good. And, that as Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do, [emphasis mine].

I am one of those fortunate people who has a storehouse of experience to draw upon and launch from. I really enJOYed Tamara Holland’s Vision Interview where she says, Relying on experience, which is one of the greatest gifts of age. Experience has taught me that consistent effort over time will get you places and results that you would not get if you did not put in the effort. I realise she could have said, BECAUSE I SAID SO, but I liked the plug for age BEing experience, something I have been growing more aware of in recent years.

I am also noticing a trend these past several Modules where I feel affirmed and my Gratitude is taking regular flight. I felt I would always BE a perpetual mess/mass of contradictions and just that side of crazy, yet in the past year I have shifted into another perspective.

Here’s the thing: it is NOT so much my age that has given me experience to draw upon as it is many repetitions of experience that encourage me to more fully appreciate BEing the age I am and living a Life that is “just right” for ME.

I am on a mission of sorts this year and many times felt/feel I’ve taken a turn down a road that didn’t take me anywhere near where I was heading. Interesting scenery, meeting cool people, and discovering some great ideas aside, I haven’t yet found my “just right” road.

Yet BEing the operative word.

Sometimes I get worried and fret and dig up my poor little seedlings to see if they’ve put down any roots… YET!!! I am NOT a gardener, but I can say with certainty this is NOT a good habit for growing things. There is a whole arena of “small details” of which I am no part whatsoever.

On the other hand…

I am looking back Now on habits that I have built by simply DOing them, one day, and the next day, and I Now trust completely that they will “take root and grow” as long as I keep DOing my part.

I have also discovered that it’s NOT about some imagined RESULTS of these habits and practises but that it is who I am BEcoming by simply DOing them that it turns out I’m “after” on this “mission.”

It is a good realisation, however “late in the game” it’s coming to me, that what I am after is an ordinary Life in which I get to BE extraordinarily ME. NOT the bells or the whistles, just ME…


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