Air Temperature -1 Degrees Time; 8.30 am
Kindness
Kindness: May be warmer temperature but the weather showed a reluctance to warm up this morning and faced snow and sleet. As looked across the sky however the edge of the snow cloud was showing over the horizon promising a brighter and perhaps sunnier day ahead. That lifted my spirits as headed out.
Perhaps the biggest gift that you can give to yourself is kindness. True kindness from a place of self acceptance. Is that what true surrendering is? True surrendering to that place of inner darkness, seeming destruction and no hope…but simultaneously the place of potential, possibility and new beginnings…?
That’s what I asked the river two years ago…
Reflected on that again today. I was working on my book and came across something I had journaled then. I was asked at the time whether I ‘liked it here’ in Devon to which I replied,
‘It is Heaven sent – the boys love it too and that is all that really matters.’
It is true enough. Ask any Mother and they would all say pretty much the same. So long as ‘the children’ are happy… but we matter too right! I remember driving across the moor at the time with the sheep seemingly oblivious to their lambs who were asleep in the road and I had a sudden realisation of what I had done in such a short time….and what is more ‘done’’ on my own. This maybe not much to an outsider looking in, but to me…well… I was suddenly aware of feeling the enormity of it. Moving across the country to a place I didn’t know, knowing no one and to a place so remote as the middle of Dartmoor. Where I hadn’t even known where the roads led to. Those who have been to the depths of despair and terror associated with ‘on own’ will appreciate the sudden sense of accomplishment…
So… from then on…this is kind of a gauge for me…a reminder. If my mind set triggers and I find myself slipping down the slippery slope of self criticism. Well, I remind myself of the guys happiness and why I did what I did in moving here and actually, although a colourful journey of emotion – actually made a ‘success’…in other words changing the mind set and outlook to ‘positive’ through being ‘Kind’ to myself.
After all neuro-science talks of mind set. I believe that mind set manifests into our reality and literally makes or breaks you eventually. Sure you can fight it, battle it, kick and scream at it, but unless you are responsible, take an honest self appraisal and embrace the ‘truth’ of what you are potentially doing to yourself… a negative mind set will win in the end. You cant ‘fake’ a mind set either, or pretend that it isn’t there, that it isn’t happening…or kid yourself that you are ‘better or above’ what ever it is that you try and hide from.
It is only that reaching out with kindness and embracing whatever is there and seeking to defrag and reset anything that isn’t really working for you anymore…that inner peace wells up and presents itself within you and within your life.
So…if that isn’t ‘deep’ enough….there is always the water… in I go…
Namaste
Enjoy your journey X