Basics

Sometimes it is good to be brought back to basics. I have always had a tendency to look at the big picture, take a broad brush approach to life. I have moved back in with my friends who were the catalyst for me to look at and change my approach to many things. To be realistic, to be authentic. Having spent so many years hiding myself, portraying an image of what I thought people wanted to see, it had all become an integral part of building and maintaining an image. I had also looked for validation from others in relationships. 

Talking to a close friend the other day she was telling me about a lecture she had attended where the topics had included resilience and compassion. In particular the speaker had discussed how it was essential to be compassionate with oneself. People found it easy to be empathetic, compassionate with others but then were there own worst critic demanding perfection from themselves. The speaker was saying that resilience came from taking the stresses moulding and working with them, understanding you can fail and then standing back and moving on. At that time you need to have compassion for your self, understanding that we can fail, learn from it and move on. Being compassionate over our failings.

There is that cliché that before you can love someone else you have to learn to love yourself. In my case that was expressed in being able to accept who I am as much as then being able to love who I was and accepting my flaws.

I read elsewhere today that it is essential to focus on what you are doing, immerse myself in whatever I am doing and find a state of flow there being beauty in the most mundane actions.

Sharing space again has given me opportunity to look at aspects which did not matter when I was living on my own, I have accepted that my hearing is not what it used to be had a hearing test and now have aids to help. Something I had resisted too proud to accept that age was catching up with me, yet it really does not matter the truth is the authentic me has hearing which is deteriorating. My life is richer now that I am hearing more, things I had not even realised I was no longer hearing that I had lost. It was all a bit overwhelming when I first started to use them, bombarded with noise not quite knowing from what direction it was coming from. Then, as I was told it would happen, my brain started to work out what it needed to focus on, I grew into my new hearing world. It will take time to suss it all. 

As with life, nothing stays the same. Each day is different and I am learning to focus on what is important, on the now to include the mundane and the menial and to do my best to grow by doing the basics as well as I can.