The power of re-committing

I am happy to be back to my usual routines after a very long summer break. It was a very joyful and relaxing time for me. I spent much time in nature, having long walks, sailing, and just resting and reading books. A perfect holiday for me 😎

However, this unstructured free time does not suit some of my habits that well. Although I experienced many informal mindfulness moments, I did not formally meditate much. Although I enjoyed reading for fun, I did not do much learning. Although I wrote in my journal and took plenty of pictures, I did not write even one blog post. My usual habits of learning, creating, and meditating went into hibernation.

It does not mean that they are completely gone though. It just means I need to re-commit to them. Since I have escaped the diet mentality, I have discovered that it is perfectly OK to put certain activities on pause and then return to them when ready. I also found that the less guilt I feel about this kind of a break, the easier it is to return to the old routine.

My good habits all come from the strongest of my values – of sharing knowledge, being creative, and caring for myself and others. When our most beneficial behaviours are rooted in our values, it is not difficult to re-commit. Our values are our reasons and without strong reasons we can never commit.

A final thought for today – remember that the values, the reasons to do something must be your own. It cannot be just internalized societal values. I have never achieved anything trying to follow the cultural ideals of good looks, health, and productivity. Unfortunately, it is extremely easy to internalize such ideals. It is also very difficult to distinguish them from your own.

Can I be sure that my values are truly my own? Probably not. I am also just a member of a society and I have naturally absorbed many of its values. However, if I go in my mind far back into my childhood, I can clearly see that exploring nature, learning things and trying to teach them to my younger brother, and creating elaborate stories in my mind and later putting them on paper, were all activities I loved the most. These joyful activities from my childhood clearly point out to my own values today.

The next step in my creative endeavours is to write a simple step-by-step guide using tools of RAIN and The Work to work through strong emotions in a journal or meditation session. It will be available on my website for free, so stay tuned for that 😉 In the meantime you can learn more about those mindfulness tools in my previous blog post.