Tag: Contentment

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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.

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forgiveness freedom

Forgiveness Part Two

Woodland walk. just me and my dog. A space to think. April 1st 2023. Photographed by myself.

I was going to write a post about another thing that keeps niggling at me but I felt I wanted to revisit Forgiveness before I can really let it go.

I’m not sure if it is forgiveness or the things that one needs to forgive that start to loom large once God hooks one onto a topic. But just recently it has felt like there are things with spikes, like those seed cases that stick to one as one walks through a wood, or have to be tugged from the dog’s fur, things that I thought I’d “dealt with” via various QEC and inner healing journaling stuff but that nip at me when I’m not quite noticing.

A thing that not only QEC but other inner trauma type healings talk of doing is to be aware of one’s vagus nerve and how one is reacting – fight, fight, freeze, fawn – and how to bring it back to feeling calm, peaceful and filled with deep joy. Not happiness but contentment and something 100 times deeper than happiness.

But these little sticky seed cases aren’t heavy. The dog can continue his walk when he has them. They don’t slow him down. But these small sticky things that I need to forgive for the millionth time do slow me down. They make me grouchy, which makes me tired, which makes me uncreative. And I really don’t like to be uncreative.

And that for me is my awareness; when I feel uncreative, when I don’t want to write anything at all. Sometimes I write angry pieces which I don’t share but that helps me look at what I need to forgive so I can move onward. We each have different things that show us we are out of sync with the calm, peacefully, pure, safe joy we should be working if we are aware of ourselves. So when we don’t enjoy or want to do the things that make us who we are that is the time when we have to stop, reset our vagus nerve, breath, and forgive – often ourselves for still reacting with that hurt as much as forgiving the person who hurt us.

Forgiveness is NOT something with sharp teeth, which is what I was going to write. Forgiveness is the the true MUST DO that is the only things that is going to keep us in good relationship with others and with ourselves. If I don’t forgive me then I forget who “me” really is.

It isn’t easy forgiving but it is essential but too often we get used to those sticky seeds, to those sharp teeth. Too often we are afraid to brush them off, to release ourselves and others. Fear stops us doing many things but most importantly it stops us being ourselves.

So as we enter into the season of Easter, into Holy Week, whether that is your faith or not, just ponder some of the things that are recorded of what Jesus did – the Ultimate Forgiver.

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time trust

Time Poor?

This photograph of my dog has no relevance to this post – apart from him never being time poor or time rich – but it for one of my readers who told me how much she loves my posts but especially the ones with photos of Renly, who she knows personally!

I was a meeting the other night and there were people there who kept saying they were “time poor“. I had heard the expression before but not really engaged with it. I think what they meant was they were doing lots of things and so were busy.

I response in my head in the meeting was to think that maybe they should be thinking about what they are meant to be doing and asking their hearts if this was what they should be doing. And then my next thing was to want to boast and say that “now I’m healed/healing I am time rich“. But then I realised that both those responses are wrong. I am comparing and being proud. Neither of which is being respectful to the people I was with who are working really hard for my little town.

As I pondered it and did some journaling around my thoughts I realised I often panic that I don’t have time to do things and that this is what is stopping me getting some work that I should have because I’d be great at it. But I am also worried that I won’t have that allusive “enough” time to do all I think I ought to be doing. So in reality I was no better. I still think I could be “time poor“.

So more listening to my heart, listening to God who Created the Whole Universe, listening to the Universe. Then I realised that if I listen to my heart then I do have enough to do each day the things I am meant to do each day – whether that is keep house, run workshops, visit an ill friend down south to relieve her husband, see my mother, have coffee with my friends, be in school to do the things I am great at doing there. I will do what I am meant to do with the energy and time I need to all that.

So not “enough” as in the worrying that there isn’t enough but trusting that each and every day what I choose to do from listening to my heart will be what I am meant to do, and that I will not do too much or too little, will not be too busy, too time poor, but will glide through calmly knowing that I am being what I’m meant to be with enough time, energy, resources, experience, etc that I need. And then like my little dog I can enjoy the moment, seize the day, and live life to the full of who I am and what I love to do.

An aside – too often we see “living life to the full” as being super busy, but I am finding that the more I listen to my heart, to God, to the Universe, the more I am filled with deep joy, deep contentment, deep peace and a freedom to trust, the more I know that I am living life to a fullness that I never had when I was busy.