These first two long-term goals are associated with having a sustainable lifestyle and a soul nurturing social life.
Spiritual, Sustainable And Healthy Lifestyle
This goal is the linchpin for all my other goals. As I struggle to create healthier habits, my lifestyle also needs to change. I cannot continue with my current level of work while simultaneously having the time to exercise, plan healthy meals and slow down my hectic pace.
So I need a new lifestyle, a lifestyle makeover. I need to continue to simplify, lower expectations and shed unrealistic standards. The life I lead today is so less stressful than when I worked in my corporate job. But with all my goals pulling at me, I often find it difficult to pace myself and I feel like I need to do everything at once.
But there is another way. And this is the path I hoping to discover. As I slow down, experiment and discover new ways at approaching my life, my dreams and my visions, I am hoping to craft a new way at approaching life itself. I am not trying to create a life devoid of passion, challenge or mystery, so I am not complaining about the stress, obstacles and limits of everyday life.
I just want to imbue my spiritual work within the very soil of my everyday life. I want to live the life of a mystic and shaman in the middle of a bustling city. I want to find out just how much magick you can inject into the everyday so-called mundane world before it begins to morph right before your eyes into something we have not experienced as a species in a millennium.
My waking life already resembles a dream more often than not. Now I want that dream like world I inhabit to teach me more about navigating my way through to actually changing the manifest world.
My Life Has Room For Me, And My Chosen Family
As my brother said once as he walked through a room filled with my friends, “You have a *lot* of friends!”
And I do have a lot of friends. It is one of the things I enjoy about my life. I can make and keep friends of such depth, talent and authenticity. All my friends seem to me to be such smart, beautiful, talented and down to earth people. Most of them I do not get to see much anymore, but my feelings for them have not diminished one iota.
It is the main thing I miss about teaching at witch camps. I always felt that witch camp teachers were like this big network of best friends that you got to work with in different combinations each year.
In fact, I was really tired last year of not having time in my life for the people I enjoy the most. So I changed my life. These people are my chosen family, so I sought ways to see and talk with them more often. I managed to keep up with more folks last year because of my commitment.
So this year, I need to free up even more time and headspace to keep in touch with other folks too, especially those who are local. And there has to be a way to mix teaching more often with visiting friends when I am on the road.
One strategy that has worked beautifully is my annual New Year’s Day dinner party. Every year I get better at spending more time enjoying my guests. And my commitment to acknowledging birthdays has been a smashing success. I just need to keep up the momentum.
I think one way I can help make it more likely that I have time for my friends, is to have more time for me. The more open my schedule, the more likely I will be able to say yes instead of no to my social life.
2008 Goals
- Openness in my schedule so I can have a social life
- New glasses
- Improved health indicators
- Normal blood sugar (A1c ~ 90)
- Lowered overall cholesterol levels (< 200)
- Baseline weight closer to ~200 lbs
- Walk 30 minutes three times a week
Ongoing
- Radical self care routines
- Weekly & daily planning
Posted in
Submitted by katrina on Mon, 01/21/2008 - 7:49pm.
sweet! :-)
You are usually able to annunciate what I do not have words for. Thank you!
Much love,
-Eridanus
INTJ here. I hear what you are saying.
"what is remembered, lives". It was with sadness that I read of Wilma Mankiller's passing. She won't be forgotten.
"...Weaver, Weaver weave this thread, whole and strong into your web...Healer, Healer, heal our pain...In love may she return again..."
While student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I became friends with Carl Rogers, who was respected as one of the leading psychotherapists of his time. He taught me much about the art of listening.
Dr. Rogers said that when we listen, and people know we are listening, it shows we truly care about them. In turn, they will respond by caring about you. It opens communication and also opens hearts. When we accept them as a person, unconditionally, they will be more kind to you.
We should listen without preconceptions, without anticipation and without judgement if we want others to portray what they truly feel. We listen with all our senses, not just to the words which are said. Some people cannot fully express themselves while speaking, so we must try to see them as they see themselves. We should watch for non-verbal clues as to what they really mean: facial expressions, body movements, etc.
While we should show positive regard for the other person, we should also demonstrate our own positive self-regard. We do not react to their negative comments, verbally or physically, even when we disagree with them. When they do ask for our opinion, however, we should respond with our true thoughts and in specifics rather than generalities. We offer our own perspective as other options rather than as contradictions.
Listening might seem quite passive as opposed to speaking. It is actually very active. To paraphrase Bobby Kennedy, “I learn while listening. When I talk I don’t learn too much.” If you think talking helps to spread your own wisdom, you are not really wise.