Refresh, Renew, Rejuvenate

The week just gone was a particularly busy and demanding one …. both socially and at work.  It started with a brilliant concert by the Foo Fighters on Sunday night – an awesome show, great energy and with great company.  But being Sunday night, the lateness meant that I was tired starting the work week, and really didn’t recover from Monday.

A friend and colleague had organized an outdoor cinema session for Wednesday night – although it was lovely to eat a picnic tea with friends before the movie, it added another late night to my week.  And to top it all off I had trouble sleeping …. Waking up at about 1am each night and then not able to get back to sleep until 4am or some nights not at all.

By Friday I was exhausted ….. I limped my way through the day.  Getting by on trying to stay in the present, trying to capture some quiet moments and to still my mind which seemed to be racing the whole week, both day and night.   I think that what frustrated me most was that I found it too easy to give in to thinking – after everything I’ve learnt in the last 12 months it seemed that I was helpless to the thoughts and emotions. 

In the weekend I sought refuge.  Time to sleep in and catch up on my sleep debt.  Time to spend with the family, to water the garden, to catch up with the washing, to thoroughly clean the kitchen putting away the accumulation of stuff dumped on the dining table over the last fortnight.  Time to catch up with some friends for dinner Saturday night, time to make a lazy cooked breakfast, time to talk with Nan and Grandad on Skype, time to go for a cross country jog with my daughter.  Time to go for a family bike ride, to take in the local community fair.  Even time to relax in a warm bath complete with salts.

At the end of this terrific weekend I feel like totally different person.  I feel I’ve refreshed my mind with peaceful moments of true presence/mindfulness.  I feel rejuvenated with plenty of sleep and without having to rush to a schedule the whole weekend.  My body feels strong and renewed with the physical activity we did – walks to the beach, bike rides through the neighborhood and even a short run with my daughter. 

Here’s to a great week ahead!

How do you relax after a long and stressful week?  I’d love you to share your thoughts, so send me a post or comment or you can email me at livewelllivesmart@gmail.com .   

Humility

I love the word humility and all it stands for, yet others almost fear it and interpret it synonymously with lack of self-confidence or timidity.  The dictionary defines humility as modesty, lacking pretence, not believing that you are superior to others. It has also been defined as having a clear perspective and respect for one's place in context.

 

I certainly don't adopt the meaning of humility as "meek" but there are those that confuse humility with timidity.  In Bruna Martinuzzi’s book: The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow she poses that “humility is all about maintaining our pride about who we are, about our achievements, about our worth – but without arrogance – it is the antithesis of hubris, that excessive, arrogant pride which often leads to the derailment of some corporate heroes, as it does with the downfall of the tragic hero in Greek drama. It's about a quiet confidence without the need for a meretricious selling of our wares. It's about being content to let others discover the layers of our talents without having to boast about them. It's a lack of arrogance, not a lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit of achievement”.

Bruna also observes that, often, the higher people rise, the more they have accomplished, the more humble they are -- those who achieve the most brag the least. "True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes". (Edward Frederick Halifax). We have all come across people like that and feel admiration for them.

I am reading and listening on Youtube to the teaching of Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now and A New Earth.  His teaching of how to be present, and the fact that presence is the only reality resonates well with me and I will continue to enjoy being a student of Eckhart’s teachings.  Of humility, Eckhart says:

“In essence, you are neither inferior nor superior to anyone. True self-esteem and true humility arise out of that realization. In the eyes of the ego, self-esteem and humility are contradictory. In truth, they are one and the same.”

Being humble and being in a place where I am comfortable to be myself and not have to pretend to be anyone else, or act a certain way enhances my self-confidence, and opens a door to my higher self.  It’s a quality worth encouraging in ourselves and in others.

In a very unlikely place – it was in a book about hunting for shabby chic treasures in flea markets – I recently came across this wonderful piece on humility:

Humility is perpetual quietness of heart.  It is to never be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore, to wonder at nothing that is done to me, to feel nothing done against me.  It is to be at rest when nobody praises me, and when I am blamed or despised it is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and shut the door, and kneel to my Father in secret and be at peace, as in a deep sea of calmness, when all around and about is trouble.

Do you value the attribute of humility?  I’d love you to share your thoughts, so send me a post or comment or you can email me at livewelllivesmart@gmail.com .   

Nothing New For a Year Challenge

I’ll let you in on a little secret – I love to set New Year’s Resolutions!  They aren’t gimmicks to me.  The New Year brings about a real chance to set goals for the year ahead, to determine something that I can really connect with and keep focus on throughout the year.  They’ve certainly worked for me over the last few years and when I have achieved the goals I set for myself I feel really proud.  Being able to achieve goals brings much satisfaction to my life and gives me the motivation to do it over and over ….. and so here I am again at the start of the New Year ready to make my resolutions for 2015.

 

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed connecting with a simpler approach to life in 2014, and I want to keep the momentum of this going.  During the year, as my radar detected stories from like-minded people in the press, I read about some particularly inspirational people doing some amazing things in the space of simplicity. 

Sasha Milne is a Perth mother-of-one who decided last Christmas Eve as she stood in a department store with a shopping cart full of items, surrounded by crying kids and stressed parents, that she really didn’t need all the ‘stuff’ she was about to purchase.   She decide then and there to not purchase anything new for 12 months.   In October 2014 she gave a presentation at a local Ted Talks event in Perth, which inspired me along with many others. 

The other inspirational story I picked up on last year was that of The Minimalists (Ryan Nicodemus and Joshua Fields Milburn) who came to Perth in October as part of their national (and international) tour.  They have turned their backs on consumerism and sold off most of their possessions to discover a new way of living that didn’t involve material things.  They found a new level of happiness and appreciation for life, and share their quest for a more meaningful life beyond excess with others via their blog www.theminimalists.com .

It is truly amazing what people can achieve when they set a vision and philosophy for how they will live life.  Natalie Isaacs of One Million Women is another person who holds a strong philosophy about life-style in relation to climate change and the simple things we can do in our everyday lives to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted to the atmosphere.  By not disposing of items to the tip, but instead re-using, re-cycling, gifting, swapping or loaning we can prevent the wastage of materials and ensure that items have the maximum possible life-span, thus reducing the equivalent amount of CO2 emitted by the items if they were simply discarded to the tip.

Considering all three approaches to lifestyle and how I’d like them to shape my life, I’ve decided that for 2015 I will take up the challenge of not buying anything new for myself for 12 months and to limit anything new for my family – with a couple of exceptions being food, petrol and medicine.  I will make a huge effort to make home-made gifts or source gifts for people from recycled materials, or even quality second hand items or antiques.  I don’t expect this to be easy – it wouldn’t be a ‘challenge’ otherwise, and I’ll keep a track of progress in future blogs.

Here’s to a sensational, simplistic 2015!

Do you set yourself New Year resolutions and have you achieved success?  I’d love you to share your aspirations, so send me a post or comment below or you can email me at livewelllivesmart@gmail.com .