Thanks French Claire, Margaret, and Unique Soul for your thoughts. Unique Soul, the persistence and continuity piece you mention is what seems to be front and center for me. Margaret, although I have always appreciated the "baby steps" philosophy, I tend to be one to "bite off more than I can chew and chew as fast as I can" - like the Paul Hogan quote from the course. In this case though, I have introduced individual daily disciplines one by one (OK, sometimes two at a time) over the past two weeks - not quite the way you define baby steps, but relatively small for me. Still I appreciate the reminder to look for ways to chunk down.
Right now, my list of Daily Disciplines looks like this:
Morning:
- Gratitude Journal followed by saying affirmations for my 6 Core Goals
- Create Your Day Meditation followed by Mind-Mapping my day on paper
Before Bed:
- Daily Review Meditation
- Mirror Exercise including successes, where I was out of alignment, recommendations for future re-alignments, and one positive inspiring thought
As I do each of these, I monitor my feelings, dowsing for a sense of resonance and engagement with what I'm doing: Am I really feeling the energy of gratitude? Am I excited/inspired to start my day? Do I feel supported by my inner coach in the Daily Review/Mirror exercise?...that kind of thing. All of this is moving me toward what Margaret calls, "creating a pattern that reflects the things you know about yourself."
The Mirror Exercise seems to be really doing it for me. I seem to integrate things better when I speak them (at least initially) than when I write them, and I am realizing that the person I most need to talk to right now is me. In the past, the approval of others had at times been a motivating force (with both positive and negative consequences) for me, but these days it's my own opinion of myself that has the most influence. It's as if I have so thoroughly internalized all those needs (for respect, for acceptance, for approval, and bottom line - for love) that the person I most need to hear from is me, face to face and eyeball to eyeball. I think I'll call it "De-constructive Narcissism"!
I have only done the exercise twice, and yet it is already crystal clear to me that this is something that I have been truly needing to galvanize these daily disciplines and to anchor my relationship to the whole ES course. What I am noticing is that in the same way I am able to see through others facades (although I have learned not to draw attention to them without the other person's permission), I am able to see through my own pretense when I look in the mirror as I give voice to appreciating what I have accomplished for the day. I am giving myself permission to both see through my own facade and, likewise, to reveal to myself what is underneath that mask and receive the appreciation and positive feedback being offered, all within the context of talking about how it went for me today. French Claire, I love that you are doing a kind of Daily Review in conversation with your husband, and I can imagine doing something like that with my partner down the road, but right now it seems the conversation needs to be between me and "the man in the mirror."
One last discipline that I've been doing the past two weeks is taking a 5 minute relaxation break at least 5 times a day. What I do is set my watch-timer for 55 minutes. When the alarm goes off, I take a break and do some form of deep relaxation (I have a number of options to choose from). Sometimes I am in the middle of doing something (like sitting in a staff meeting or cooking dinner) so it isn't always practical to drop what I'm doing, but typically I am able to do it at least 5 times a day. I am finding a marked difference in my overall disposition, to be sure, and I am also beginning to use the breaks to ask where to put my attention and intention next. My goal is to gradually foster more of a constant conversation with both my body and my inspiration, but right now I'm happy with just being less "wired" during the course of the day.
Enjoy yourselves!
Stevers
