Lately, I've been pondering how much of
my life has been spent where I feel as though I'm not really present as it's happening. Perhaps it's my tendency to focus on the negative - and I know I can ruminate on "time wasted," and so need to be mindful when examining this aspect of my life - but I also know a lot of life has passed me by when I've felt really disengaged and disempowered. Time and energy spent in cycles of anxiety and depression, hours spent pursuing distractions from my anxiety but also keeping me from truly living out my
passions, too much time spent unhappy with my place in life, and a feeling like I'm lacking real dedication to any
particular goal. These feelings crystallized and changed this weekend when I travelled with my partner to his ten-year reunion for musical theatre school - in particular, when I heard about the year he spent intensively developing his skills as a performer: six days a week dedicated to pursuing his dreams, and putting his whole life into his passions. I realized that I've
never really had that level of dedication or self-discipline in my
life. I want to - no, I
need to develop a plan to re-engage with my passions in life. I've never really felt like I've given anything
my all - so often, I feel like I'm just "floating." The
moments of my life when I've felt most fully alive have been when
I've really been pursuing my calling – that is, really engaged in work
towards something bigger than myself.
After some soul searching, on July 9 of this year, I decided that
this year would be a “year of personal growth” and marked the day on my calendar. I've scrambled
a little bit to figure out what exactly that means, but I think it
will involve intentionally engaging myself in my life's work, and really
following what Baron Baptiste calls my “true north” - which for me is a spiritual focus on
embodying lovingkindness. To that end, I want to pursue it to my
fullest ability. I want this next year to be a “life boot camp”
as it were. I'm going to start fresh all over again. Work on mental health so that I can truly love myself with all of my flaws. Work on being gentle and disciplined with myself in such a way
that I can really blossom and flourish. Work with my body, and really practice my yoga and physical wellbeing so that I can live in a balanced, integrated way.
I want to learn to put my
whole heart into living. I want to learn to take care of
myself – body, soul, and mind – to be able to fully live in the
present moment in a healthy, loving way. I want to celebrate myself. I want to end the cyclical judging voice that plays so continuously in my head.
To this end, this is my prayer this evening:
May I embody lovingkindness.
May I love myself.
May the benefit of this be for
everyone, everywhere.
May it be so.
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