Within each person is a vast untapped source of energy. This energy has the potential for healing, creativity, wisdom and many other hidden talents.
Improving our well-being is one of the steps we can take to release this energy. This chapter continues to explore ways in which we can block energy leaks, be more effective and create a nourishing environment, enabling us to achieve more. We then look at how we can open up to our creativity. We consider our own abundance with right livelihoods and real wealth. The chapter ends with thinking about what it means to be empowered and our own leader. These can all become systems of growth, expansion, change, clarity and new horizons in our lives.
We can all soar to great heights. This possibility exists within each one of us. For some of us we may already be stepping into our potential; for other people it remains latent, unseen behind the curtain. The inner world is as vast as the outer; there is an infinite, expansive universe within each and every one of us. We can reach for our potential through observation and design, unfolding the possibilities of our being.
Our potential is unboundaried; we cannot reach or fulfil our potential because there is always somewhere further we can take ourselves. We are also perfect in ourselves in the moment, just as a baby is no less perfect than a fully-grown adult.
Our expanded being may have a completely different form to our current selves. It may not be just more of the same; a bigger you, like a sapling to a big tree. A caterpillar changes into a butterfly, a grape seed turns into a vine. We may find ourselves different from who we are now. This of course is scary to our gremlins who may stand guard at the threshold. We may find ourselves under pressure from our gremlin to stay where we are. As a seed germinates the outer shell has to crack and is lost to the earth, so too our growth and learning may involve us letting go of previous attachments that no longer serve us, like shedding skins of the past to allow us to shine. This creates clarity for our higher visions.
When we are at our best, we can serve the world and allow ourselves to fully contribute. Our own potential links with the potential of others and the culture we live in. By reaching towards our potential we are encouraging others to do the same. With ourselves as we are, there are a certain amount of possibilities and ideas available to us. As we grow these possibilities increase. As we all grow and increase our collective potential the possibilities increase even more. We don’t know what technological and interpersonal solutions are in the space of the collective potential that may allow us to live sustainably in harmony. Being at our best will enable us to participate in the Great Turning and help it to happen more quickly.
In order to be at our best we need to be doing what we want to do and be efficient at it. Time is often cited as one of our main limiting factors. We all have the same amount of time in the week though some people make better use of it. In our daily lives most of us have ways we waste time. By looking at how we can save time we open up to thinking about the bigger picture of what we would like to achieve. Even small savings of just one hour a week can bring benefits. An hour of music or yoga a week would make a difference to our well-being. Time saved could have an impact on our earthcare systems. This could be as simple as just having enough time to make lunch instead of having to buy food with packaging, or a much bigger project.
Effectiveness is producing a desired or intended result. In order to do this we must be clear what the desired outcome is, otherwise we could end up somewhere entirely different. We also need to pay attention to the wider impacts and the inputs it takes to achieve our result.
When we are in the flow and being clear and decisive everything can run smoothly and we have a sense of achievement. We see the bigger picture and can focus on the details. We are thriving and able to complete tasks and make progress. We are unhurriedly able to juggle the tasks we give ourselves successfully and maintain a high standard of work. We have clarity and spaciousness in our lives.
Identifying where we are losing time and energy will help us to remedy the situation. These leaks to the system prevent us from being fully effective. Observation of where the drains are can help us to stem them.
Some patterns of leaks of energy that are often observed are:
Before taking on any new projects, consider in advance how big they might grow. It is easy to sow lots of seeds – they are little and it is a quick task – but then they need watering, a small, daily task. Soon they need planting out, which is a bigger job... And we mustn’t forget to have time to harvest. If we sow too many seeds then we will find ourselves with more than we can properly care for. We need to sow an amount that we can maintain and nurture.
Sometimes we need to clear the decks before taking on board any more. If we have a backlog of seedlings that need planting out it may be useful for us to do this rather than sowing other seeds. When one part of the system is overloaded it can create blockages in other parts of the system.
If we are over our time budget we need to do some pruning. What can we move from our list? Can we ask someone else to do it, or say no in the first place?
Procrastination can take on different forms. What is it we are actually doing when we procrastinate? Procrastination can be a way of avoiding facing up to our responsibilities. The mind gym1 identifies five main messages our gremlin can say in order to avoid the task at hand.
Procrastination is a symptom rather than a root cause. The cause may be fears, resentments or anger about the task. There might be fears of failure, change, being open to criticism or that it won’t be perfect. If we just don’t do something we eliminate the chance of failure and the opportunity to test ourselves. The resentments may be around feeling that it’s not supposed to be your job, resentment of authority making you do the task or resentment of yourself for agreeing to do it.
There are small tasks that we put off, that may not have long-lasting consequences, but these can create a pattern for the bigger steps that we would like to take in our lives. How are you procrastinating about being at your best?
What techniques do we already have to deal with procrastination?
Create a list for the day. Order the first six priorities on your list. These can be quite small tasks, and if the task is a big one it is best to divide it into smaller achievable chunks.
Complete the list in sequence. Keep with the first task until it’s finished, then move onto the next one without reading the rest of the list. Continue until you have finished all six. Congratulate yourself and then number the next six things.
This method allows us to maintain focus, stops us procrastinating between tasks, and allows the subconscious to start working on the next task, so we are more ready for it.
We can identify when we are using focused or unfocused energy and assist in acting accordingly. If it is unfocused then we either need to attune ourselves to the job in hand or consciously decide to put it aside for a while and do something else.
Our projects have different paces of growth and momentum. There are times when trickle-feeding jobs and taking chunks off them is beneficial and other times when it is good to conserve energy and take a proper break, coming back to it with full energy and focus, and complete the task.
There are other times when applying conscious effort and focus is necessary. In meditation the urge to move, open our eyes, and allow our thoughts to wander is there, and we need to keep coming back to our breath and drawing our focus in. Sometimes we need to stay seated at a task and resist the first, second and third impulse to get up.
There is a balance to be made between structure and flow. Sometimes we go where the energy is, doing things when we are in the mood and able to concentrate on the task. Other times we need to be disciplined and just do what we have to do and sit with the task until it is complete. We need to find the appropriate strategy for the situation and ourselves, and keep watch for our gremlins looking for an excuse or a way to procrastinate.
A big step forward to being an effective person is to know when to take a rest, reflect and nurture oneself to return with focused refreshed energy, and when this would be avoidance and it’s more honest to stay with the task in hand.
When burning wet or unseasoned wood we only gain a fraction of the potential energy, so we burn more to get less. When stocking our wood stores, it is best to get ahead of ourselves ensuring a supply of well dried wood to make most use of the available energy. This pattern is the same for other areas of our lives where we can end up chasing our tails trying to keep up. Keeping on top of things reduces stress, linking with our health. Spending time designing, blocking energy leaks and creating efficient systems can make best use of our energy in the long run.
When looking to buy solar panels we are told how long it will take for them to pay for themselves. This is the point at which the outputs exceed the inputs. As we saw previously, when we design systems we are aiming for the outputs to increase over time and the inputs to decrease.
We could think about how long it takes to pay back investments we make in ourselves. At what point would we be saving more time than we invested if we were to learn shorthand or to touch type, upgrade our filing systems or make other improvements?
How can our homes encourage and support us to be at our best? Our environment is the physical edge between our internal and external worlds. It is the edge, the place of interaction with others, particularly if we share our home. Our physical environment affects our emotional environment and vice versa. It reflects our inner processes and both the positive and negative patterns in our lives: patterns of variety, hanging on to the past, unfinished projects, unity, growth, relaxation and play.
The space we live in can be fertile ground for thinking, health, creativity, positive relationships, work, learning and love. Or it could be a place of chaos, frustration and bad memories, with mini avalanches occurring whenever you try and find something. To improve soil condition and enhance fertility in the garden we would aerate. Dust and clutter could be seen as the pests and diseases of the home that restrict our growth.
We might be living in the past, emotionally connected to our memories through physical items, or living in the future: ‘I’ll make/do/read that when I have time’. Clutter is a product of procrastination, we put off dealing with what’s in front of us: we’ll put that cup away later; we’ll do our filing another time. This is not being kind to our future selves.
Moving items on can be like pruning our lives. When we prune fruit bushes the plant is then able to put more energy into the remaining fruit, producing less but bigger fruit. The first step with pruning is to take out any dead or diseased branches. This could apply to anything that is broken – fix it or ditch it. Next we look at what branches are crossing over and rubbing each other. What is crossing over in your life and stopping you doing something else? Is there no floor space to put your yoga mat? Would you like to move home or go travelling but are too weighed down to do so? Our material assets can be used to pseudo-satisfy our need for protection and identity, but may inhibit our need for freedom, creativity and leisure. Pruning is not going to kill the plant and likewise moving stuff out of your life will actually enhance growth and allow space for new influences and experiences.
What beliefs do you hold about your environment and belongings? I remember reading ‘a messy room is a creative room’. Another slogan found on mugs is ‘a clean house is the sign of a wasted life’ – is it? Or is it actually a waste of time looking for your keys buried under a pile of washing?
The words ‘getting rid of’ can be sticky in themselves and need reframing. Changing this to ‘moving things on’, or ‘creating space’ allows us to feel more positive about it. Regifting is my favourite way of moving things on. Moving into an abundance mentality allows for more flow of energy around us.
Beware of the gremlin presenting us with traps such as ‘getting rid of things produces waste!’ There are limits to what we can keep and find useful; it is not feasible or desirable for us to keep every yogurt and margarine tub. Storage is not recycling!
As autumn draws close trees send toxins into their leaves. As we let go of things we can imagine the toxins – the bad habits and painful memories – going with them. In the river of life activity we edited and remembered the highlights of our life. This is the same method on a physical level; we are left with the highlights. Clearing clutter becomes a cathartic, healing process.
We can expand the edges of tidiness and create new patterns by slowly increasing the boundaries of order. This leads us to another principle work out from small well-managed areas: success in small areas encourages us to continue as capacity allows. Thinking of our home in zones allows us to prioritise the areas to sort out.
For a while it may be necessary to stem the flow into your home and increase the pathways out. This may present us with many opportunities to practise saying no to things. We wouldn’t want to make this a permanent state to be in – saying no to new things/projects/experiences in your life – but it may be a vital step to take for a while.
Motivations for change can come from focusing on what we are going to gain. Letting go of the past gives us space to expand into new horizons and allows for the ‘now’ in both the literal and metaphorical sense.
Potential exit routes:
A permaculture design method is to map energy flows. You can do this for what comes and goes in and out of your home. This will provide you with useful information about where all this stuff is coming from and how you might be able to restrict items coming in. Mapping the pathways out of your house will also help to see how many places you can pass things on to.
Everyone is creative. We continually construct our lives in new, meaningful configurations. Every conversation holds the potential to be innovative. We have a right to be creative; it is a natural part of our humanity. Opening up to our creativity allows us to become more resourceful in our daily lives and access some of our stored potential.
Being creative is bringing our imagination into expression. We could expand our concept of creativity to include gardening, dressing, cooking and talking, to help us see ways in which we all live creatively – it is not just for some ‘artists’ to be creative. Creativity can permeate everything we do – if we let it. We can integrate both ways, being creative in our practical activities as well as efficient with our creative projects.
Permaculture is a creative process asking us to use local resources in new, unique, appropriate ways. We can use our ingenuity to create gardens, jobs, incomes and communities. Problems provide opportunities for us to be creative in finding solutions. When designing, the more inspirations we have in the ideas anchor point the more options we have to choose from.
By blocking our energy leaks with being more effective and creating more space in our environment, we are gifting ourselves with the time and space to be creative.
Inspiration can arrive at any time, but there is also a lot to be said for putting the time in. It is a place of potential to turn up and be present to whatever arrives. When the ideas flow we need to be able to catch and store the energy, having a notebook to hand to sketch or write.
There are times of day when we feel more creative or are able to see new ways around an issue we have been pondering. We might notice a pattern in this; when we are driving, or in bed at the beginning or end of the day, while washing or exercising... It is often at the times when we are relaxed and have space for daydreaming that ideas surface. Walking or riding a bike requires us to use both sides of the brain and integrates thinking from the right and left side. Under stress the connection between the two hemispheres doesn’t work so well and we function from our dominant side. The left side deals with logic, language and time. The right side holds imagination, intuition and creativity.
Stimulus to kindle ideas can be found all around us: watching other people or looking at the stars; listening to music or the waves on a beach; feeling the wind and rain on your cheek; a feeling in your belly watching a film. Snippets of conversation or opening a book at random can stir the imagination.
We can use metaphors found in pictures, natural objects and weather types to observe ourselves and access deeper meanings to our own thoughts and feelings. ‘What fruit would describe how I felt today? If I were a tree where would I live? Which of these pebbles on the beach represents my future?’ We can find meanings in the colours and textures, patterns and sounds. These sorts of questions can bring fun images to mind.
The icon for integrate rather than segregate holds little meaning in its individual parts. When brought together as a whole however we might see people linking arms and a star in the centre. Meaning can be created through its connections and organisation. If we find ways to cross-fertilise ideas it can give rise to unique combinations.
Our projects have different stages of growth. There are underground processes at work; like mycelium creating connections in our mind, we can prepare the soil and enhance this with food for our creativity such as ideas, stimulus, information and our environment. Sowing the seed of the idea comes next; when we draw down inspiration, we may have to wait for germination time. Next comes the watering, nurturing and growth stage. Finally comes the ripening and harvesting, sending it out into the world and reaping the benefits.
We have probably all come across the phrase ‘thinking outside the box’; it may not be apparent though what shape it is. We can look at the characteristics of edges to help us to look for the edge of the box and move beyond it. The edge is a place of dynamism; it can be uncomfortable and we may feel the resistance, but it is also a productive, creative space. The edge is the place of innovation and discovery.
Tara Joy, a friend and wonderful painter, describes reaching this place with a painting where she can’t do what she was planning and thinks about abandoning it. Sticking with it though and looking for the potential and growing edge she breaks free and it invariably leads her to a beautiful, unexpected place. She is now using that metaphor and experience from her art while setting up a reforestation project in India. Whenever she feels the resistance of the edge and thinks of giving up, she looks for a new route into the unforeseen.
There is delight and pleasure to be had in the process as well as the end. We can creatively use and respond to change and be open to new directions that emerge. Our lives feel a corresponding expansion as we release the infinite possibilities of our own being.
This technique is used in design to break us free of our usual patterns of thinking, described here in terms of garden design, but the technique could be adapted to different designs or played with in many circumstances.
On paper or card write down all the elements in your design. On different coloured paper write down prepositions (words that describe relative positions such as under, inside, far away from). Now choose two elements and one preposition. You may come up with some funny ones such as the chickens on top of the rabbits. Think about how this might work and the interesting effects of this. This might lead you to ideas for a double layer hutch, or a chicken run on stilts. Keep going choosing three more cards. The more ideas the better. This is a great game to play with other people, especially children.
A thought breaks
Thinking tools can help us to expand our creativity and increase our effectiveness. By changing our patterns of thinking, our outer behaviours and systems are also transformed. By improving the way we think we can increase our quality of life and produce more effective solutions. Our design work benefits from improved analytical, reflective and questioning skills as well as generating more ideas to choose from. These tools are also useful for working and designing with other people.
Tony Buzan and Edward de Bono have produced large bodies of work for developing our thinking skills. Tony Buzan is best known for mindmapping.4
Mindmaps are visual representations of information. They follow a branching pattern that mimics the structure of information storage in our brains. It is an open form of representing information allowing it to be continually added to. Their non-linear approach makes many edges for our subconscious to keep working away at, while the map remains complete in itself at any time. The design web follows the same pattern of creating thinking edges while allowing us to see the whole picture.
Mindmaps represent systems within systems. Each branch of the mindmap is a holon; it is complete in itself while still a part of a greater whole. The information is captured in a concise form that allows our brains to work on many different aspects at one time. Mind maps make it easier when we are trying to recall information, because they work with our visual as well as our conceptual brain.
Mindmapping is useful when juggling lots of roles in our lives and seeing how they interrelate. They can be used as alternative list writing to increase our effectiveness. I create a mindmap for every month showing each of my areas of activity including personal and family as well as work. It helps give me a sense of where the balance is over the coming month, and shows that I might be overcommitted if it won’t all fit on the page!
Mindmaps allow us to be creative and access both sides of our brain. When Leonardo de Vinci was asked how he was so inventive he answered ‘everything is connected in some way to everything else’. Mindmapping liberates our thinking and allows us to see existing connections and make new ones.
Create a mindmap of yourself. Some suggestions for branches on the map are your past, present, future; your hobbies, likes and dislikes; friends, family; home and work.
Through the creation of the mindmap new connections, overlaps, ideas and patterns may emerge.
This traditional story reminds us to seek beyond our own experience for a more complete and deeper understanding. Edward de Bono5 has developed parallel thinking tools where we examine an issue from different standpoints and integrate multiple perspectives.
The first of these is called a PMI, Positives, Minuses and Interestings. Whatever the issue or problem, we initially focus on all the positives. Next we look at the minuses. Lastly we can look at the interestings – anything worth commenting about that doesn’t necessarily fall into either of the first two categories. For example we may be considering going jogging each morning. The positives may be getting fit and fresh air. The negatives may be less sleep, it is weather dependent and it’s still dark in the mornings in winter. The interestings may be the feeling in your muscles.
The second technique is Six Thinking Hats, which we will come to when we look at decision-making in Part Three.
Having a livelihood is an important part of being human. A ‘right’ livelihood means it is ‘right’ for us as an individual, it suits our needs and is in line with our ethics. It also means it is ‘right’ for others: that we are not harming or exploiting other people or the planet. Our job can provide many functions in our lives. Beyond financial gains it might also provide a connection with other people, a way of using and developing our skills or contributing to the world. Our jobs can be our delight, passion and play.
What would it feel like to do what we love and love what we do every day? We need to find our joy and purpose in life and ways to satisfy a whole range of ethical, intellectual, social, emotional, physical and financial needs. There may be a transition phase where we can volunteer or apprentice to build up our skills.
Poly-income streams allow us to have multiple elements for important functions. Our current culture promotes people having one full time job. A poly income would be where we have yields from different sources. Joe Atkinson is one amongst many permaculturists who have designed themselves a poly income. He works as the learning co-ordinator in the Permaculture Association, a gardener and permaculture teacher, and is developing mentoring at the University. He says, “A poly-income can yield an incredible diversity of rewards that I believe would be difficult to find in a single job. I am able to connect the inputs and outputs of one job with another. For example, my gardening informs my teaching and vice versa, and this informs aspects of my job as learning co-ordinator. So, in a sense, each element forms a kind of symbiotic relationship with the others to provide mutual support and development, much like in a natural system.” At the beginning in particular, he found the switching between jobs required a high degree of personal organisation and investment in time management activities. He also found that in order to change, he needed to go on an inner journey to challenge the mindset of the rat race he had been conditioned with.
There is a risk of all of the streams becoming rivers and being overworked. If this is the case we can regift one of the opportunities to a colleague.
We can weigh up the inputs and outputs for our work. A word of caution: we may be so busy thinking that it’s not about the money and accounting for the yields of satisfaction, enjoyment and worthwhileness of the work that the financial side can get left out or sidelined. A balance can be achieved where it’s a ‘both/and’ situation – the satisfaction and the money – rather than ‘either/or’. Doing work that inspires us, and gaining financially from it, is a winning situation.
In a landscape the desire lines are the places where people want to walk. Generally people like to take the shortest route cutting corners across the grass. A landscape architect told his team to just turf over the whole area in the courtyard connecting freshly built apartments instead of creating paths. After a couple of months they returned to see where the desire lines were – i.e. where people wanted to walk – and over the rough mud tracks that had been created they built the paths, exactly where people wanted.
In our own lives we have desire lines that appear by virtue of us wanting to travel that way often, time that is effortlessly spent. Where are the desire lines appearing in your work, with people, places, hobbies? What do you enjoy spending time doing? Who do you like spending time with? When and where do you feel you are best using your skills? Desire lines often occur subconsciously, but paying attention to them can inform us of our true wishes and longings and lead us to our right livelihoods.
You can ask yourself ‘what do I really want?’ Ask yourself repeatedly until an answer comes. It is OK to not know what your purpose is. This is a place of power and potential. It could be that the next step you need to make is to slow down, stop and think.
When we think of wealthy people we generally consider the money and assets they own. Real wealth looks beyond money and asks what we value. The word ‘wealth’ comes from Latin and combines well and health.
Wealth extends beyond our bank accounts and there are many ways in which we can be well off. For example in the majority world there is often a richness to communities that has been eroded in the West, where we are buffeted by technology and material wealth and no longer have to be dependent on one another and often don’t even know our neighbours.
Real wealth asks us what we value in our lives that brings us well-being. Ways in which we may be wealthy could be in our relationships with family, friends and our community. We have wealth in our basic needs of shelter, water and food. Having freedom of speech, to make choices and to move around is valuable. Our skills, creativity, inspiration, humour, knowledge, time and ideas contribute to our real wealth. Culture, entertainment, safety, being loved, health, living in nature, and space are of value.
It is not just what we have ourselves but the resources that we have access to. Social structures such as healthcare, schools, library and transport are of value. Nature is an abundant resource providing for our needs.
The fair shares ethic encourages us to look at the equality of opportunity and voice in the world as well as the distribution of material wealth and control.
Our real wealth, just like our bank account, is not static; it can grow or be depleted. Ethan Roland8 identified these eight forms of capital to provide us with a different way of accounting:
We can create real wealth with our actions. Reforestation and gardening increase nature’s abundance. Knowledge, empowerment and connections increase our own wealth. We can also look to conserve real wealth by protecting nature and soil, water, forests and species. We can look to halt erosion of communities, sharing stories and preserving skills. We can use our real wealth by using our time and exchanging what we have and cycling resources.
Throughout the design process we can give attention to creating abundance. We can use the pause anchor point to give attention to developing abundances of rest, relaxation and health. The helps anchor point invites us to recognise our internal and external resources. Abundance is a pattern of nature we can emulate. In the integration anchor point we can focus on meeting our real needs.
We can begin by identifying and valuing what we have. We often place value on something that we do not have. The relationship or the job we want becomes of extreme importance while we forget to be thankful for our family or connection with nature. Fostering contentment and gratitude with what we have will shift our attitude to one of abundance rather than scarcity, and is why the appreciation anchor point is important.
There are two ways of increasing our financial capital: get more money in, or reduce the money going out. Often the focus is on earning more, but we can also make differences to reduce our outgoings that can improve the quality of our lives.
In what ways am I wealthy?
Think of all the resources and talents that are available to you.
What areas of my life would I like to be wealthier?
What could help to bring abundance into these areas?
These are areas of your life that could benefit from some design.
Permaculture is an empowering process – empowering people to be who they want to be and contribute to life. Most power isn’t given to us; other people can help us to tap into our own sources of power, the power that keeps us strong and burns like a fire inside, power that creates and moves us forward.
In physics, power is the ability of a machine to convert energy from one form to another. If we translate this to people we could look at power as the ability to focus our energy into the activities we want.
Close your eyes and sense into your body.
Where in my body is my power?
Perhaps it is in one place, or it could be all over your body. Feel into this place and notice its qualities.
Notice the fluidity of its boundaries.
Where could my power take me?
From becoming aware of your power as a physical force within yourself you will begin to notice times when you are using your power.
After doing this visualisation you will begin observing when you are feeling empowered and when you are feeling disempowered. Notice when your power feels muffled. Empowerment is the removal of any obstacles to your power source. What are the circumstances when you feel disempowered? How does that manifest in your body? This is a two-way communication between your body and mind. How is your body reacting and what does that tell you about the situation?
Using our power does not mean being dominating over other people. It is about having the confidence and self-esteem to do what is right for us. We can empower ourselves to be more honest. When we are working from our power we become proactive rather than reactive and work to create rather than consume. We can use our power to find our voice in the world and step up to the mark. If we were all in touch with our own power and all stood up to say we want changes in how the planet is treated, we could experience rapid transformation.
What does it look like to be our own leader? How would it feel to wake each morning and to say to yourself “I am my own leader”, placing yourself at the heart of everything you do?
When we take leadership of ourselves we accept personal responsibility for all of our thinking and actions. We move away from being the victim and blaming. This includes blaming ourselves. We can trust and follow our inner knowing, there is congruency between our wishes and our actions. We walk our talk. We are proactive in looking for solutions, able to tap into our inner resources and assured that we have answers within ourselves.
Our self-management includes focusing on tasks, and creating and maintaining the boundaries that allow us to achieve the goals we set. We could create a balance of work and play in our lives and be fully present with whatever we are doing.
We could embrace and accept our whole selves in all our brilliance and in all our flaws, able to celebrate our strengths and improve our weaknesses. We could be our own nurturing parent, not overindulging and accepting excuses or criticising our efforts. We could stretch and challenge ourselves looking for growth in our being.
When we are in touch with how we are feeling and able to listen to ourselves we can be more authentic and united with our own visions. We are able to lead ourselves on our own path through life.
Appreciation of ourselves and recognising our skills and abilities is a vital part of accessing our own power and self-leadership.
Write down as many answers to the question:
What I like about myself is…?
Spend five minutes noting down all the qualities that you like about yourself. Take the whole five minutes (more if you like), you may feel like you have run out of things after a couple of minutes but just sit and dig a bit deeper to find what you appreciate about yourself.
This can be very unfamiliar territory for a lot of us. There are cultural standards of how much we can show appreciation of ourselves, and whether we are taught to be modest and not ‘blow our own trumpets’.
Self-appreciation is a valuable tool in our toolkit; it leads to appreciation of others and abundance thinking.
The bright abyss
DHAMMADINNA