Alignment

Just Show Up

August 2, 2017

“When you imagine your future, do not think that you will be the same then as you are now.” – Sanaya Roman

I started writing this yesterday, and wanted to wish you a very happy beginning of August, but there were men here working on our rental house and it was so loud, I couldn’t even think. So I popped my earphones in, listened to some music, and got sucked into looking back through my blog.

vision board full 2010

(My Vision Board from January 2010.)

It started off with me copying and pasting some of the quotes I have used in the past, but then I just started to scroll backwards, reading three posts at a time, until I had reached page 75 and a post I wrote in 2009 about the strangeness of memory.

I remember all of it. I remember taking every picture and where I wrote each post. I remember learning how to upload the chapters of my book. I remember how I felt, how I yearned and searched and wanted and dreamed. I remember how lost I felt and how worried I was that I was never ever going to ‘get it together’. I remember the people who used to comment on every post, and I wonder where some of them are now. When I follow the links back to their old blogs, most are long gone.

It was a strange feeling, watching Future Self me reading back over letters from Past Self me; a me that feels so far away and yet so present. I am still her in so many ways. Her questions, her dreams, her proclamations, her wishes and her hopes are all still a part of me. I am so proud of her, so in awe of her, so grateful to her for showing up and writing what was in her heart, and for always asking for more.

Earlier this week I wrote a post about just showing up, and so I have been spending time at the page every morning. As I wrote this morning, I thought a lot about about mySelf and all of the things that I have been wanting and dreaming about for years, and where I am compared to where I thought I would be by now.   I know now that all of the good things that happened in my life happened because I showed up. And I don’t mean rocked-up-to-the-party-once-and-went-home, I mean when I knew something was right, so I showed up up over and over again, even when I didn’t feel like it. Even when it was hard. Even when all I wanted to do was go to bed.

vision board meghan genge 2010

(Detail from my Vision Board – January 2010. P.S. I own those glasses!)

And that is a big shift for me. My natural inclination is to stretch towards freedom, but rules and structures make me want to run screaming into the night. Sitting here looking through the eyes of my past self, there are so many more things I wish that she had showed up for.

But here’s the Magical bit: now I know. Now I know that in a few years I will be sitting somewhere looking back at this letter. Now I know that that me will want so much to tell this me to just show up.

It’s not about weight.
It’s not about money.
It’s not about love.
It’s not about health.
It’s not about anything.
It’s about tending the fire:
My Fire.
It’s about showing up, over and over and over again.
The way my future self would want me to.
And making her happen.

Alignment

90 Days of Showing Up

July 28, 2017

Warning: there’s a bit of swearing in this one. 😉

”I think midlife is when the universe gently places her hands upon your shoulders, pulls you close, and whispers in your ear: I’m not screwing around. It’s time.” ~ Brene Brown

I’ve always been the girl with the plan. If I wanted to write a book or lose weight or start exercising or learn something, I would sit down and figure out where I wanted to be, then work backwards. If you were to open any past planner of mine, you would find at least one countdown on those pages.

But I never got there.

I never got to the end of the countdown with success. I never ended at my goal weight, I never wrote 50,000 words in a month and I never got to ten push-ups.

Why?

I think for four reasons:

I’ve always been a bit rebellious and my ‘screwyouiwon’tdowhatyoutellme’ notion sadly even works on self-imposed rules.
I was getting something out of staying where I was. If I never got there, I wouldn’t have to see what there meant.
I bought whole-heartedly into the notion of ‘be gentle with yourself.’ But instead of doing that, I used it as an excuse to not show up if I didn’t feel like it or if I was tired or if or if or if…

And that’s all crap. Yep, all just excuses.

Yesterday I did a long guided meditation in which I asked my guides for the answer to a question. There is some stuff I want to clear, and this seemed like as good an idea as any. I went in, I sat at the feet of a guide, and I asked my question. The answer?

“Stop fucking around and show up.”

Not your usual answer, but I took it, mostly because I’ve been getting the same answer for weeks in my writing and my course creation and my journalling: just show up.

Over the past twenty-four hours, I have read the other part of that phrase four different times in four different places: stop fucking around.

Those words? Five times in two days? Really?

Today I counted – because that is what I do – and I realised that it is 90 days until my birthday. And within those 90 days, we will be moving into our house. Usually that would have me making a Plan and writing a goal in my diary.

But not today. Today I am admitting that that doesn’t work, and instead I am going to stop fucking around and just show up at the page. Every day. No matter what. No matter how I feel or where I have to go or what I have to do. Everything counts. This matters. My work matters.

I matter.

90 days of showing up. 90 days until my birthday. 90 days.

I can count that down.

It’s a good Plan.

Alignment

A Question of Prosperity

August 25, 2015

This morning as I was scrolling through my feed on BlogLovin, I came across this interview with Pixie Lighthorse on Annapurna Living. When asked about how she starts her day, Pixie says a lot of really wonderful things, but the thing that really struck me was when she said, “I ask myself what I will need to feel successful during the day…”.

Now that in itself is a whole pile of wonderful, but in MY head as I mulled them over, the words changed almost immediately to: I ask myself what I will need to feel prosperous during the day.

Prosperous. That was where my mind went. That was the question it wanted me to think about.

What do I need to feel prosperous today?

It is a very strange thing to walk away from a paycheck and sell nearly all of your stuff and then to want to think about prosperity. I used to feel that prosperity was all about being able to buy what I wanted whenever I wanted, or to be able to go wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted. But as we build our life from the ground up, the question of what kind of life we want to lead is divinely tied to the question of our prosperity.

The word prosperity can trigger all kinds of fears and worries and old stories about money, but if you look up prosperity in the dictionary, along with the money words, you get words like: flourishing, well-being, thriving, rich, full, comfort, and plenty. Those words are the words on which I would like to build my life.

And so right now, as the toucan is singing outside of my window, and the rain is beginning to fall, I ask myself these questions:

How can I feel rich and full today? What can I do to ensure I flourish and thrive? Where is there already prosperity in my life?

Instead of bringing up old money stuff, these questions make me smile and they make me think, and I can feel my perspective and my realm of possibility getting wider and bigger. With these words in mind, the answers can come from anywhere. With these questions in mind, anything is possible.

What do you need to feel prosperous today?

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