‘When you rise each day like spring = every day is a flowering’
~ Kari Hohne
Having a positive attitude is an ongoing journey for me. Like many, I’ve been taught and conditioned to have a negative attitude. I spent 30+ years most of the time expecting the worst, preparing for failure and having an uncomfortable addiction to fear.
In the UK right now, it is spring, my favourite season and even during lockdown I can appreciate all the blessings, light and aliveness this season brings. A time when earth is a flurry of activity, newness, freshness. You can almost hear the seeds and new growth waking from its slumber, ready to meet the morning sun.
Spring has an energy of optimism. Even when in the midst of sorrow and depression in my past, I recognise how spring made me feel. The quality of life reaches the otherwise darker parts of me that were hidden and curled up in the cocoon of winter.
On my birthday last week I was feeling some sadness, because being in lockdown and having limited choice on what I could do felt challenging, but I went for my daily exercise walk that we are allowed to do and the sun came out from behind the clouds.
I walked and it felt like the sunshine was speaking to me, sending me signals of newness beyond the sadness. I soaked it up and felt myself breathe more deeply, receiving this wisdom and messages hidden within the ray’s light reaching out to me.
I felt like the sun was reflecting the entire universe and life, giving me a birthday blessing, that in dark times and during challenges, the light will always be there if we allow it in.
This reminds me that I can continue to carry on with my old story, focusing on lack, comparing my life with others, fearing the future, expecting it to be based on a painful past or I can open up and rise like spring.
As I write this post, the sun is shining outside, I drink my jasmine tea and I burn a little pine incense and listen to relaxing music while my new story is playing into my unconscious from an audio file I created and I let the light back in, because even if my conscious mind may be resisting the new story, my unconscious, my inner child is opening to this new story. The springtime of my soul is beginning.
Tune Out
Social media and mainstream media can be the one thing that may turn this spring into darkness, if we allow it to. This morning I initially checked out the trending topics on Twitter and also checked out the headlines on mainstream news. I saw the pain, the fear, the anger and outrage. I accepted it was happening, but I chose not to feed the fear more by staying there.
It is important if we want to get through this challenge or any challenge, we find ways to acknowledge the facts of what is taking place in our lives, but we don’t rest there, we don’t linger on the tough stuff happening. This doesn’t mean we are ignoring reality; it simply means that we are choosing to find even a ‘little better’ to focus on.
We may not be able to focus on the positive right away, but we may be able to find something a little brighter in the world that may hold our attention for a short time.
Springtime Creativity
In the spring or the spring of our life, because we all go through different seasons and this has nothing to do with the physical spring taking place on the earth, we have an abundance of ideas, new seeds being planted and we may feel propelled forward. However, many of us may feel overwhelmed because of our old negativity stories. We have ideas, creative ideas to explore, but too many. We have so many ideas that instead of acting on them, we allow them to back up, to block the drain of our creative flow.
As we listen to the voice of self-doubt, we allow more and more ideas to flood the already overflowing river and we feel that we are stuck in an everlasting dam, but this can all change.
We can rise each day and open the valve and allow a little creativity out. This doesn’t mean we write the next bestseller or start a business that will be loved by all. No, what it means is, we allow the flow to start flowing again. We stop feeling stifled by the pent-up tension and pressure of ‘too many ideas’. We start to take little actions, planning our days; we stop using television, social media, the news, food, other people as a distraction because this never brings us to the real space of calm that true creativity flows from.
So, we organise action into our days, we allow ourselves a little of our old story, because we may not be able to fully let go of it just yet, but we limit the time we spend indulging in it.
For me it is indulging a little in mainstream media, what is happening in the world and then I switch off, do some gardening, go for a walk, write, clean… whatever it takes.
Simple actions.
A reminder from Julia Cameron, the author of ‘The Artists Way’ and ‘Walking This World’, for when you feel overwhelmed and self-doubting of your ideas.
Take a walk and remind yourself:
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I do have good ideas
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I have many good ideas
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Slowly and gently, one at a time, I can execute them
This is a simple practice that any of us can do. Because it is never that we are rubbish at ideas or we have terrible creativity or we are blocked from inspiration. It’s more likely that we have lots of inspiration but we have grown so used to too many ideas overwhelming us that we just distract or stop ourselves taking little actions which would bring forward those ideas into physical reality.
We get lost in the ‘what if it’s a failure?’ So, we don’t even try. But true success is the ability to have a go, to have the courage to do something new and to do so whether it works or doesn’t.
Don’t Quit – John Greenleaf Whittier
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.