Category: Contentment

Categories
Contentment Trust God

It Ain’t What You Think It’s the Way That You Think it

[misquote from Bananarama & Fun Boy Three’s It Ain’t What You Do, It’s The Way That You Do It]

Sunrise over Conwy beach photographed by myself

I haven’t had time to post for a while. I’m also still working on some thoughts to add to series I was starting following on from my friend’s visit. So far I’ve got Hope and Free Will and a drafted post looking at Why Do We Allow Suffering? but I’ve not had time to fully get my thoughts in order as this week has been really busy. In fact last week was busy too.

But this got me thinking about how we look at things. I can be really grumpy that I didn’t get a day off last week and worked more hours than I was rotated in for and that this week has gone the same, or I can accept that this is just the way things are at this moment in time. I can look at my diary and see that there isn’t much down time and feel grouchy about that or I can enjoy each day as it comes and feel grateful for the spaces I do have. Not a false push through sort of gratitude where we try to be grateful for things but a deep into my heart gratitude that I don’t just mean with my head and my will but that I can feel through my whole body.

Now I see these feelings flip flop throughout the day. So I have moments when I feel that true deep gratitude and then I feel lighter, the children I’m working with are easier to deal with. But then being human I can then feel just fed up that I’m still at work and wish these children would go home, feel my legs and eyes aching, and then, guess what? The children pick up that energy and are harder to be with. It is my energy that changes not just my own body but those around me.

I don’t want to just be working towards the coming fortnight when I shall be on holiday but want to enjoy each day as it is. So to add to those lines

It ain’t what you feel, it’s the way that you feel it

It ain’t what you think, it’s the way that you think it

It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it

It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do.

Thank you to – Bananarama and Fun Boy Three

I know I won’t get this right every time but I will try. So today, even though I am doing twice as many hours at work and can’t have time write as much as I’d like, enjoy my dog, etc, etc I will be grateful for this day, this week, this time God has given me and enjoy it to the full rather than wishing it was something else and I was doing something else.

Because “This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it” Psalm 118:24 rather than bemoaning what we don’t have.

Categories
Contentment joy

What Should I do With My Life?

I often hear people say “What should I do with my life?” or “What is God’s plan for my life?”. There are loads of courses on how to find out your giftings, your motivations, your best traits, your career prospects, and that doesn’t include the many life coaches out there to help with this. But this quote from a story posted on Fictive Dream really struck me. I’m not sure if this is what the author intended but it is what I got!

The basic story is of a young woman talking to a wizard to find out what she should be doing with her life as she feels like she is at a crossroads, and of how her intention is to be happy.

‘Your work is all that you do, while you’re here. The price of happiness is to remember this each day of your life.’

The Wand Maker by Mike Fox Read more by Mike on https://www.polyscribe.co.uk/

What struck me was that it isn’t what you do but knowing that all you do is what you do. “Your work is all that you while you are here”. Everything we do, whether we intend to do it or not is the “work of our lives/the plan God has for us/our destiny“. And that if we can remember this we will be happy.

So we roll out of bed in the morning and know that from this moment on what we do is our life’s work whether that is writing a blog, walking the dog, chatting with the woman in the shop, gazing out the window, solving the climate crisis, sending that email, doing nothing, reading a book, [add in whatever you’ve been doing this morning/afternoon/evening/yesterday/last week/tomorrow].

EVERYTHING WE DO IS THE WORK WE ARE TO DO WHILST WE ARE HERE ON THIS EARTH.

And if we can remember this then we can be content and happy.

I’ve put the two photos of my dog at the start of this post because whatever he does he is happy whether is it running on the beach or sleeping on the floor cushion he does it wholeheartedly, with joy, with happiness. I’ve just taken him in the car to the pet shop where we got out, bought dog food and bird food and came home again. He was so happy to be out with me in the car. He is now snoring on the cushion with happiness.

So without thinking, without planning, can I just accept that what I do is the work I’ve been sent to do? Can you? Can we all accept that there is maybe not grand plan for our lives accept to be content in all things?

I often think the greatest witness a Christian, or a follower of any other way of life, can show is not their preaching or evangelising but that they love where they are, what they are part of, radiate an inner peace and contentment and don’t have to keep arguing it and expecting everyone to agree. I know I started walking towards God because of what I saw in others not because of what they preached.

So whether it is following Jesus, being a vegetarian, moving to another part of the country, doing what we do, do it with happiness, with contentment, with peace, with job. Because this life is all we have, let us enjoy walking in it.

Categories
acceptance Achievement Contentment

What Have I Achieved?

Picture of a broken wall and pebbled beach looking across water to a town and island. Taken by Diane Woodrow
Abergwyngren coastal path looking towards Beaumaris taken by myself – Aug 2021

I woke up feeling low this morning. Low and old. Bemoaning that I only had a handful of years left to live and what had achieved with it. So I sat on my yoga mat with my cat and pondered. Because I’m also following Christine Sine’s example of deep gratitude I did my best to move into that place.

Well to begin with I have two amazing children who are doing great in the world. I have published a book [and trying not to beat myself up over the fact that it is my only one so far. I will go back and read my last post if I get issues there]. I encourage lots of people with my writing groups, with the youthshedz project [more on that in another post]

But it is too easy to look back and think of all the things I haven’t done – not had a great career, not entered politics, not invented something that would change the world, not some recognised person in the media.

But what really is achievement? What does it really mean? As a Christian I have come to believe that it means knowing God deeper and myself as well so that I can love others.

Doing the work with the Youthshedz young people I realise like them that I am luck to be alive. At 25 I didn’t like myself but now, 35 years on I can say that I like myself. I trust myself, and I have noticed the more I trust myself the more I trust God and also other people.

There is a verse about “judging as you will be judged” [Matthew 7:1] and I think that when one is striving to “achieve” something noteworthy one is too often looking at others, judging what they are doing, rating them as better or worse than oneself – generally better than – rather than just getting on and doing the stuff.

So I may not change the world and neither may my children or the young people I encourage, but you know I think if I make my world a more contented place by being more contented myself – by creating that energy around me of acceptance and contentment – then I have achieved enough.

Like the harbour wall in this picture one day all will be gone and I will be forgotten and you know that is ok.