Sunday, Mundane Sunday
What a week for me to be focusing on mindfulness in my Wavemakers ride. I began feeling agitated and frustrated that I wasn’t getting anywhere. Wherever anywhere is, I’m not entirely sure, I just felt I wasn’t somewhere I thought I would be.
Though as I progressed, things seemingly started to connect with each other. For some reason the book I began reading was talking a lot about impostor syndrome. I started noticing posts on LinkedIn about the aspects of my growth that interested me. And as I was cooking dinner tonight I realized without planning it, I had began making a dish I was dreaming of making a few days ago. This, my friend, I believe is what they call manifestation.
I got a bit annoyed at the idea that we should try manifesting our vision of success — not what society defines as success, but rather the aspects of our lives that we consider most important. I became quite uncomfortable with the idea of realizing my vision by literally behaving as if I’ve reached my goal. Aside from feeling ridiculous, I had a feeling I’ve tried this before and too much of a cliché personal development thing to do.
Nonetheless, I still engaged in discussions and listened to fellow Wavemakers as that’s how I would approach any learning opportunity, I commit.
—
But as I was reflecting today I went about my Sunday paying attention to my thoughts, feelings and actions. Moment to moment I noticed how so many facets of my being that are simply in motion. A feeling of joy triggered by a sincere conversation I was having with my brother, creative ideas sprung about coloring my mind with creative galore, and even the motion of my body making its way to the carpeted-floor of my room to stretch my overworked physique.
So much can be observed by paying attention to the mundane.
But pace of the modern-life can easily cloud our judgement to what success means to each of us. Yes, we live in a social construct that relies on our cooperation with each other. But this construct may only work if we can serve each other when we are operating truthfully, as ourselves.
It’s fascinating to realize that this journey is absolutely not a straight line. Because I went back to one of our exercises from the first week and I dove deeper into finding my super power — my yin and yang. After reflecting on my inner critic and patiently slowing down to pay attention to the mundane, I had more information to feel more confident about defining the value that could balance my primary value, my opposing value.
As I mindfully went about my day I noticed such strong feelings of passion, which is one of my values I chose to focus on. And it is truly amazing to witness yourself embody something holistically, as yours thoughts, feelings, and movement naturally coordinate to manifest it. And yet, this value can be very draining for me and I have been wanting to figure out what is the value that could balance this out.
Calm.
That’s what.
I wrestled with a few similar values and tried to see how balancing they were but none felt as well-suited as ‘calm’.
—
Then I realized that my impatience of not ‘getting anywhere’ after 3 weeks in this journey was actually my value — passion — getting too much control.
I needed my yin to my yang, my calm to my passion.
I am learning to see that this short journey I’m going through is not going to give me ‘5 rules to live by’ or ’10 simple ways to become the best leader’ after I’m done. It is giving me the space to explore possibilities, to experiment, to stretch my perception of what being authentic can sound, feel, and look like within a professional setting. It is providing me with the kind of encouragement you unfortunately rarely receive within that professional setting as we tend to separate being a person and being a contractual staff. This opportunity to experience being a whole person, inclusive of our values.
Thanks to practicing mindful awareness, I was able to notice such subtle cues and recognize my hidden value, in my mundane Sunday.
P.S. I hope you enjoyed the simple images I took using my phone throughout 2022. I love documenting my daily life in photos.
