My Personal Standard (aka A Poem For Ken)

If I think I should
I should

I used to have that poem written on a notice board in work - visible as I walked in.

A reminder for me to act.

Your gut instinct. That instantaneous decision. The unconscious thought that's born to life before you knew why you needed to think it.
Where does it come from?

Too often I would delay, hesitate, procrastinate. Sometimes not acting. Sometimes acting in a manner contrary to my initial gut feel for the situation.

If I think I should
I should

That's my personal standard - a conscious challenge to myself each time I think I might take a short cut.

I'm not going to sell myself short.

The results of my actions should match the initial positive intent.

By consciously challenging myself I push through the tough times when I think it's too hard, the wall is too high, the current too strong.

My personal standard, as I discussed in a previous post is all about me having confidence and belief in...myself.

I envisage the right things.

I put these positive thoughts into action.

I catch my thinking when I feel weakness.

I stand strong and follow through.

I trust my gut feeling - I back that instinct.

I move on with greater respect for myself knowing I did not cut corners, I did not sell myself, my idea, my actions, or those around me short.

That's my personal standard.

Stillness = Savasana: in the reasons for it, not the act itself

Stillness is not as the word implies, being motionless.

To believe there is a state of no movement is a little foolhardy or naive
We are always in motion, always engaged in some form of activity, be it mental or physical.

Stillness for me is how I absorb what's around me and make sense of those experiences.

It's a very active, engaging stillness.

Much like the Savasana at the end of a yoga practice.

It's about allowing your body to adjust and soak up the changes it has just undergone.

My notion of stillness may be physically unassuming as it is all about how I continue to adapt to my surroundings.

Taking the time to look at the details about me and bring meaning and understanding to what's occurring.

And in doing so gaining a greater appreciation of both the experience and how I can use that to positively benefit future experiences.

Confronting Control

Control: the ability to purposefully direct, or suppress, change (thanks WikiPedia)


I've never considered control important to me - when I write the bio of myself next to my profile picture, words like 'relaxed', 'easy-going', 'go-with-the-flow' come quickly to the front of my mind.
But have I been shielding from myself a deeper truth?
That CONTROL really is important to me?
And that by consciously dismissing it's importance to me, and my lack of regard and care for it, I actually seek it strongly at a very fundamental level?


For me, I've opened this post with too many questions. This canvas is about moving past these questions which can act as impediments to happiness, satisfaction, belief & peace.

With only a vague idea of passive-aggressive understandings, my reluctance to stand up and confront an issue has seen me construct a 'shop front facade' which consciously protects me in the moment, really keeps me down.

Read 'easy-going' as quick to acquiesce.

'Go-with-the-flow' - I don't want confrontation right now.

'Relaxed'. Really? Inwardly seething, possibly?

OK, that last one is pushing too hard in a negative direction.

Food?


So to put these questions into perspective, this realisation I've come to over the past few days is encapsulated well, for me anyway, by my relationship with food and eating, as one example.
Though a good one.


While I wasn't willing to exert any influence or take a stance over what others wanted to do around me, I could control what I did.
Or didn't.
By making the decision at a very young age not to eat vegetables maybe I'm saying, THIS IS MY STAND. YOU CANNOT FORCE ME TO DO THIS. MY WILL-POWER NOT TO DO THIS WILL OUTLAST YOURS.


There's a saying that pops into my mind: "Bite your nose off to spite your face".


I'm unwilling to express unhappiness about something real which has happened. I store this up and use food and eating as the manifestation of this frustration/anger.



"This is my control. This is the power I am capable of".


And I then thinks this leads to a very black/white situational thinking pattern.
I don't eat vegetables. I'm a fussy eater. I'm into variety in almost everything else in this world and in my life EXCEPT food.


But that can't be true.
This isn't about food.
This is about attitude.
This is about CONTROL.


I've used things (food, tidiness and order, opportunities, experiences etc) as a way to exert control over how I can NOT do something if I don't want to.
Denying myself. Frustrating and bemusing others.
Seems very strange now. 
Why would I take such negative actions?


Is avoiding the short-term awkwardness caused by a necessary confrontation over long-term ability to find satisfaction and peace, feeling confident, at ease, really a good enough reason for such destructive and harmful behaviour?


Fight or flight.


Let's be on the level, then.


Control: I really want control. 
I want certain things to go my way. I want to influence others positively to work with me and for themselves, to the betterment of all of us.


Control out of confidence because I can be in control. I am strong.
Not control out of desperation - a whirlpool of confusion and panic, an absolute need to hold everything tightly within my grasp for fear of looking weak, incompetent, not up to scratch - and that I might let someone down.


Relaxed control.
Knowing I'm being true to myself.
Responding positively, confidently in any given moment. 
Taking responsibility.


That feels better. There's a lightness to those last few sentences.
Now I need to tear down some barriers and build up something more positive in their place, learn what I can really achieve when I'm not exerting negative control directed inwardly.


Exhale.

When the Stars Align...

I always seem to be waiting for the perfect moment.

Just the right time.

All your ducks in a row.

When the stars align in the night sky.

And how often does that happen?

Right.

So procrastination sets in.

Or "patience"...but that's being overly kind.

I thought about yesterday at the beach, and that momentary sense of peace and lightness.
How could I recreate that?

I thought about how that moment could be realized within my life.
Waking up St 5.30am, walking down to the beach, over cool sand, pre-dawn.

Sun salutations to awaken body & soul.

A mindful meditation to bring awareness and peace.

The rolling waves of the ocean, the engine of the earth purring into life.

An idyllic beginning, although beyond the realm of my current reality.

Using tools to hand, though, I took a positive step in creating the scene, painting the picture.

A yoga instructional podcast.
A mindful meditation audio recording.
The sound of the ocean captured on CD.

Taking these three separate elements using editing technology available to me I was able to combine all element in one track so that I can practice yoga and mediation whilst hearing the mighty ocean as a backing track.

That's the stillness I've brought to myself today.

Where Sand Meets Sea

Yesterday, I stood knee deep in waves as they crashed ashore in quick succession.
The world inside my head was going a million miles in no particular direction.
As the beach experience was drawing to an end I made the conscious, active decision to take in this moment.


A deep inhalation as I closed my eyes briefly to reset my vision.
The loosening and release of my shoulders.
Crown lifting skywards.
Feet pressing into the soft, shifting sands beneath.
The sound of the waves as they broke around me.
The deeper, more constant rumble of the ocean further out as it moved with an awesome, almost imperceivable power.
The lightness of the air surrounding me.
The warmth of the sun.


A beat, maybe two, and then moment was fading behind me as I turned and walked away.
In that instant, though, I felt the latent power around me.
The energy, a great overwhelming positivity.
It's there.
All the time.
Not just while I'm at the beach.


Those beats need to become a bar.
That bar, a verse.


A composition, a soundtrack, constant like the surging undercurrent forces driving the great ocean I'd just been facing.