Life is a Challenge!

Hello

What a full weekend I have had. I am very happy to say that I did get my wild and windy walk in the end. The wind really helped to blow away all my cobwebs. One thing that I have really noticed in my mission to feeling good is that exercise is really important for me. I have always been a very physical being, and there is definitely a substantial link between doing exercise and the way I think and feel.

I don't think humans were made to sit around indoors all the time looking at screens or bits of paper, that sounds ridiculous, of course we weren't! Several thousand years ago we would have been running daily across hillsides chasing other animals, or being chased! I'm not saying I'm not glad that I don't have to outrun saber toothed tigers every day (or at all for that matter) its just that I am having a physical experience and I would like it to be a bit more physical!

Having a small baby presents a lot of challenges for me, I am practicing the kind of parenting where I hold my baby when she wants to be held (which is pretty much all the time) I feed her when she is hungry and I sleep next to her. I am doing this because it feels good, it feels right and people frequently comment on what a happy baby she is. However I am not getting much time at the moment to move around!

If I could I would trampoline, swim, walk miles and dance a lot, and I think all that exercise is fundamentally conducive to easily thinking good feeling thoughts. So I have a challenge on my hands.

Today I need to focus on the idea of challenge more than usual, I have been experiencing a large amount of negative thought surrounding what I would call my external circumstances or environment. I wonder what is really going on here?

Many religious and spiritual teachings which I have come across have in their doctrine some form of the adage "As within, so without". What does this mean? The way I'm interpreting it today is that when my inner world is in turmoil, the outer world also appears less friendly.

It's so easy to slip into a way of thinking that works in a negative way; I feel miserable because of so and so or such and such, or if I had more money a bigger house or a better career then I would feel great.  I blame my circumstances.

My real Challenge is to work with my mind, I am going to try to continuously give myself the reflection that over the last eight weeks nothing in my external world has actually changed for the worse, some things have indeed changed for the better! It's all back to that old chestnut of how I'm viewing it!

Where have my rose tinted spectacles been? I seem to have exchanged them for mud tinted ones!!!

I guess the work I am encountering and the mission I have embarked on is harder and more of a challenge than I at first realised. What do I do when the going gets tough??

This is a good question for me. I'm not going to crumble. When Perseus finally met up with Medusa, and realised that she could turn him to stone with one look, he didn't say "hmm perhaps I'll just sneak out the back door and become a waiter instead". When Theseus found himself in the labyrinth with the Minotaur he didn't just look for a way out, he took the bull by the horns (if you'll excuse the pun) and fought with all he had for his life, and he WON!

I may not be Theseus or Perseus, but I do have my own personal Medusa and a Minotaur to slay, they are dressed in the clothes of negative thoughts, and they are easily created in the labyrinth of my mind.  When I am feeling low or tired they rear their ugly heads........

So I have to face the challenges of a Greek Hero!


I like the idea of Challenge when it is dressed up in a romantic way! It seems exciting, exotic and interesting. I also like the idea of "as without so within, as above so below".
Perhaps eventually, or rather, I shall aspire to being so happy within that my without looks and feels beautiful all the time too.

Today I am Thankful for inspiring literature
I am Thankful for delicious food prepared lovingly
I am Thankful for babies laughter
I am Thankful for freckles
I am Thankful for my children's first pictures
I am Thankful for cuddles
I am Thankful for coming in from the cold to a warm fire and a warm heart
I am Thankful for the power of song
I am Thankful for Terry Pratchett
I am Thankful for my home

love Klara.