afternoon nap - Miss Winnie Dixon & Oliver
Your emotions will follow your mind wherever it goes.
Martha Beck - author, life coach
Eek ! I'm in trouble. Skimming through Martha's latest book Steering by Starlight yesterday afternoon I came across that quote. So simple and oh so true. I found an exercise on page 12 called Treasuring the Future. The exercise is to take 10 minutes each day and spend that time, as vividly as possible, imagining your life with all it's heart's desires. The first thing that I realized is that I get so caught up in all the little worries and frets and to-dos and must-dos that come along with this single, self-employed gal with a big old house and a huge property life that I forget to ever think about my heart's desire, at least in any real concrete way (other than wishing my boy Jake were still here and somehow magically deemed immortal). Especially since his death I think ... all my wishing and dreaming has been about the past. Not good.
If you don't know what your heart desires ... how will you ever find it ?
Anyway ... back to the 10 minute dreaming and imagining exercise. I decided that I would use my nightly witching hour for this exercise. I wake up, each and every night, anytime between 2am and 4am. Wide ! Awake ! and usually I use this time to frighten myself or to feel sad and lonely - a very bad habit I've developed. Last night was my first go at this new exercise and since I don't yet fully understand my heart's desire, I made the simple rule that all my thoughts had to be about success (in life in general or in my creative world/business - I do know that that is my biggest heart's desire - the ongoing building of my little creative empire) or thoughts of happiness & contentment and it actually was quite pleasant and it wasn't that difficult at all. I'm beginning to realize that ...
The secret to changing your thinking, is to remember that your thinking needs changing. Wink.
Fall seven times, get up eight
Japanese Proverb
I should put that on a t-shirt.
Here's a link to Martha Beck's web site. She has many books and also writes a column each month in Oprah's magazine. Also reading This Year I Will .... by M. J. Ryan and her site here.
I also tend to allow the negatives to creep in during the wee hours....and to think of all my loved ones who have passed on and the stupid mistakes I have made. For some reason we seem to be at our most vulnerable then.
ReplyDeleteHaving enjoyed several of Martha Beck's books I'm looking forward to reading Steering by Starlight.
This is the second time you and I have bought the same book at the approximate same time. I bought Martha Beck's book before I left, but I haven't begun it yet. I really like the way she writes but have never read one of her books, only her column in Oprah. The first, of course, was Eckert Tolley's newest book.
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you a book I'm going to get the minute I get home, I read about it in Oprah. I'm thinking you might like it too because dogs play an important role in the book. It is called The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Edgar has selected and created a breed of these sort of spirit dogs. And it just sounds wonderful and the lines I read from it very poetically describe his dogs. Of course it's about a lot more than the dogs, but they are integral.