Monday
❣ Welcome to our first Monday of ten ❣
This is your daily Heart Post to encourage heart centred, personal reflection.
For This Thread
1) Is there anything you’d like to share about Sunday’s meditation?
2) What did you feel when you read Monday’s reflection? (Below)
🍂🍂🍂. A reflection taken from ‘The Way of the Happy Woman: living the best year of your life’ by Sara Avant Stover 🍂🍂🍂
“It is time to gather, store, organise, and wind down from summers high tempo and the relentless forward momentum that modern living usually demands.
When the crisp winds of autumn start to blow we need to tune in to the signal that it’s time to start slowing down.
As leaves fall to the ground they decay and merge with the Earth once more again. We too are in the process of letting things wither and fall away, to gather only what is essential for the winter months…
How gracefully can you let go? How much can you give into the way things are? How well can you honour yourself and that which is passing?”
My words:
This season is more introverted, yet it is productive in its own way. It allows us to practice the deep process of letting go. We can practise when we focus on our out breath, when we relax our muscles, when we put away our summer clothes.
As well as letting go we can hibernate in the warm and friendly cave of our heart, where a little candle 🕯 burns and where our inner truth is nurtured and cherished. By discarding we can pare ourselves down to focus on inner work.
We can feel the seasonal grief and sadness and we can let go. We can find that underneath this is a rooted place to hold us safe, that has been there all along.
Welcome to autumn 🍂 and to this course. I hope you will enjoy harvesting what it good in your life and releasing that which is ready to go.
💭 Welcome to our first Monday of ten 💭
This is your daily Head Post where we think about and discuss topics.
For This Thread
1) Please introduce yourself to the group. You can mention your motivation to do the course and what you hope to gain from it.
2) If we reap and harvest something good that we planted at the beginning of the year that we can now see the fruits of and choose to put in our Gratitude Warehouse, what would you harvest and put away to warm or encourage you this winter?
It could be a holiday, a creative venture, something you read or learned, an experience you had. Feel free to share here.
🖐 Welcome to our first Monday of ten 🖐
This is your daily Hand Post where we take action.
For This Thread
1) Spend time with yourself quietly reflecting and or journalling. This one new habit will stand you in good stead for the whole of the course and maybe the whole of your life.
2) Check in here to say how you got on with this one new habit over the weekend that has gone and today. Did it go to plan, did it happen as you wished/planned? How do you feel about achieving it? Any positive outcomes?
Tuesday
❣️ This is your Tuesday reflection post ❣️
Relax and drift a little. Let your muscles relax and maybe even wander to your safe place at the hut in the woods again. Listen deeply to yourself, focus on your body and your daydreams.
Now write down, “What do you want?” at the top of a piece of paper or in your journal. Sometimes this can be more powerful if you write, “What do you want, sweetie?” at the top of the paper, as this invites tenderness, a maternal or paternal approach.
This can be deep, “I want to be able to receive love“, or simple, “I want an ice cream“, “I want a bath“. Ask yourself this question repeatedly for several minutes, don’t censor or judge what comes up at this point, simply write ALL your replies down.
Don’t rule anything out. Even if you can’t have it. You might find you are surprised. I did this once and found I actually WANTED to get my accounts finished!.
You can’t have EVERYTHING you want. But you can’t have ANYTHING you want if you don’t stop to discover what you do want.
💭 This is Tuesday’s thinking post 💭
Go through your ‘I want’ list again and now expand it. ‘I want because….’
Try to get to the heart of the want, the need underneath. Eg ‘ I want to lose weight because I want to feel more comfortable in my body’ or ‘I want to win the lottery so I can work fewer hours’.
Now put a star beside any you could EASILY fulfil.
🤚 Tuesday’s action post 🖐
1) On average it takes 66 days to install a habit. With 67 days of the course to go, take some time to reflect quietly with yourself and to write in your journal. Establishing this habit will mean you can absorb the course. 5 minutes is better than none. Tell us here how you got on today.
2) After pondering your ❣️ and 💭 exercises (do those first). Give yourself one thing you want today.
3) Check you were clear on yesterday’s post or in your journal about your Aims and Objectives for this course, your reasons and motivations. This contains the information that I need in presenting the course and without you and I knowing what you want it is unlikely that the course will ‘work’ for you.
Wednesday
This Wednesday we are going to start with our Thinking post.
We are looking at and discussing a different list today. A list of ‘shoulds’. In Gestalt therapy we call these ‘introjects’ which means things we have taken in whole.
An example of a helpful introject is, “Look right, look left, look right again.” when we are crossing a road. Do you find you cannot cross even a one way street without doing this? And that you have to be very conscious to look the opposite way if you are in a country where they drive on the other side of the road. I can even hear the rhythm and intonation of whoever taught me this phrase. On examining the phrase, I decide this is a useful introject and keep it.
But what about introjects such as, “boys don’t cry”; “Don’t speak until you are spoken to”, “sex is dirty”? What if we don’t believe these things any more? Changing a belief is only the first part of undoing these introjects, because just like the crossing the road introject, we don’t even notice we have them, we don’t know they are there.
Till now.
Now you are going to make a list of your introjects or the hidden rules of life. To get the ball rolling I will put out there, “Don’t make a fuss” and “Don’t be selfish”. Have a go in the thread below and in your journal.
Today’s Heart Thread: Permission Slip Wednesday
After looking at your introjects in our sharing and discussion thread, take three core introjects that are adversely affecting your life and write yourself a permission slip.
‘It’s ok to …’ listen within, and write yourself a permission slip.
Some examples might be, ‘It is ok to rest’, ‘It is ok to be angry’, ‘It is ok to leave food on your plate’.
I’d be interested to know what you discover in the 💭 and ❣️ today.
🖐 Wednesday’s Action Thread 🖐
1) Habit installation: check in when you’ve spent some time reflecting quietly or journalling. How many times have you managed this so far this week, is this habit improving? Have you got a most successful time of day and least successful time of day?
Remember with good habits you don’t do them for immediate gratification. You can’t prevent mood dips and life’s challenges, but good habits will help hold you, while poor habits might reduce your resilience to meet those challenges.
2) Find a conker – I will explain why soon.
Thursday
❣️ Thursday’s Heart Post ❣️
REFLECTION
Today’s exercise is to help you find out a little more about the uniqueness of your life and your deepest beliefs, motivations and desires.
Imagine you are holding in your hands a biography about YOU written about ten years after your death. It frames you in a positive light, having lived in a way that is satisfying for you to read about now. It is not a fantasy and it is based on truth.
If the story of your life ended well, if it was a satisfying read, if the truth of your life so far turned into an inspiring tale, how would it go?
Read the back cover.
Write this in your journal or here. Remember the story of your life up to now has to be true.
If you’re stuck you can use this guideline:
An inspiring tale of …….
Growing up for [name] was…
Overcoming ….. took many years / a lifetime.
In midlife…. propelled her / him to ….
This book follows her / his / their ups (……..) and downs (…..) and ultimately demonstrates ….
The reader is left pondering ……
If you find your mind turning to a negative or ironic back cover and can’t shake it off then write that down first to get rid of it and notice how dominant and strong that view is. Do you see any of yesterday’s introjects there? You may have to work a bit harder on the task but I encourage you to return to the task and rewrite your story.
💭 Thursday’s Thinking Post 💭
You’ve done a lot of work so far this week and you will be summarising this for yourself as the week draws to a close.
So today you can continue to work on you ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’ or introjects looking at how they have both served and restricted you. Thinking about which to let go of like autumn leaves and which to hold on to.
If you’ve completed that work you can make a list of your top ten happy times and see if you can explore what really makes you happy. Not what the world tells you will make you happy, but when your heart was full and warm.
🤚 Thursday Action Post 🤚
Remember we don’t always see results but the habits we lay down now will be the foundation for sustaining good physical and mental health.
This week we are working on The Main Habit which is quiet personal reflection and journaling.
5 minutes is better than not at all, in your head is better than not at all. We are coming up against struggles to do this. Please don’t be discouraged. If we can establish this habit other changes you want to make will come more easily.
Your introjects tell you you’re not important and you don’t have time for this. But by giving yourself permission to do this you are turning that negative brainwashing on its head.
I want you to keep persisting with this because this is the foundation of your freedom.
Take action today towards establishing a life where YOU feature. Not the rules of your parents or society.
Did you spend time with you today?
Friday
❣️ Friday Heart Post ❣️
Write a slogan, mantra or Sankalpa. This is deeper than an affirmation.
Don’t worry about making this perfect you will have a chance to edit and redo this exercise later.
Close your eyes and wait for the words to come. Visit your wise place.
💭 Friday’s Thinking Post 💭
Now you have begun the process of connecting with yourself
(i.e. what makes you happy; what you want deep down; how you would like the story of your life to read; what the introjects / rules / shoulds / oughts / pressures are that have restricted you)
take a look at your ‘things to do list’, your daily routine and calendar and notice where you are truly spending most of your energy and time.
What dissonances do you notice?
🖐 Take action to ‘brain wash’ yourself! 🖐
Put your slogan on your screen saver, in notes on your phone, a memo on the fridge, on a piece of paper under your pillow, as the name of your waking alarm on your phone, in your journal.
Feel free to be creative – draw a design, make a poster, make your own meme, spray paint graffiti round your home town… 😜