The stepmother and stepsisters represent the underdeveloped but provocatively cruel elements of the psyche.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I am reminded that I am not only the protagonist in the myth or tale,
I am also the antagonist;
When I am accepting of this, when I humble myself,
I am able to continue the journey and I am changed on the way.

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves; from the Russian tale, Vasalisa the Beautiful.

We cannot have an identity of our own until we have our own story. But it is also by way of story that we know we need an identity.*
James Carse

A ritual is nothing but the dramatic, visual, active manifestation or representation of a myth. By participating in the rite, you are engaged in the myth, and the myth works on you – provided, of course, that you are caught by the image.**
Joseph Campbell

So many stories awaited your birth,
Swooping you up and carrying you along, and
it has taken a little while to figure out that
you need your own tale –
Let’s call it your myth –
And it won’t be the first and unlikely the eleventh,
Where your deepest joy meets the world’s
deepest need, where you
uncover your truest self,
Providing form and presence and potency in
crafted activities and pauses,
Knowing that if you do these things, something
quite marvellous will occur –
Some may even call it magic.

Rise, rise from your bed
There are dreams in the air
Harvest light for days ahead
And shine it everywhere^

*James Carse’s Breakfast At the Victory;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss;
^Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in.

For somehow all our lives are ultimately unsuccessful, to the extent that we understand success: no external success, no effect, that is to say, no biological or sociological influence out there in the world, is guaranteed to outlive us or even to last forever. However, inner success, the inner fulfilment of life’s meaning, is something that, if at all, has been achieved once and for always.*
Viktor Frankl

Thinking that working eighteen hours a day, six days a week, when I first started out would help me become successful. Instead, I destroyed my marriage and almost my health.
Male, 68, Virginia

Happy the person who is able to
become the Self that brings them joy, to use
themselves, their talents, in ways that are fulfilling
and meaningful, which are making a
difference for others –
Achieving that do not end in retirement,
Each day being one for honing, stretching, adding, and
growing;
Not so we can ever say “Look at me,”
But only to breathe more deeply a
purer air.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Participant in American Regret Project, from Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret.

By heart I mean the place where the emotions meet reason, mobilise the will, and shape identity.*
Alex McManus

*Alex McManus’ Makers of Fire.

A clear sense of self-directed meaning provides us with an essentially inexhaustible supply of motivation.*
Steven Hayes

What he is, he is not yet, but ought to be and should become. Being human is being responsible because it is being free.**
Viktor Frankl

To find our enthusiasm is to
find our responsibility, and
to find our responsibility is to
find our freedom, becoming
what only we can be;
Our enthusiasm is found within,
Our deepest and most joyful response to
what exists around us, and a life
without enthusiasm is a life of
regrets.

Enthusiasm: ‘inspiration, frenzy’
from Greek enthousiasmos,
from enthousiazein ‘be inspired or possessed by a god’, but,
What is deepest in us is of God.^

*Steven Hayes’ A Liberated Mind;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.

Perfectionists love to begin new endeavours, because the moment of starting belongs to the world of limitlessness: for as long as you haven’t done any work on a project, it’s still possible to believe that the end result might match the ideal in your mind.*
Oliver Burkeman

Rule of thumb: The more important a call or action is to our souls evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.**
Steven Pressfield

I think most of all first of all imagine something we want to
make or do or be to be without problem, and doable –
It’s how our minds get us to begin, otherwise
we’d never start anything;
Yes, there are some who will say No! before any picture forms,
Whilst others find their early enthusiasm wilting before increasing imagined difficulties,
Yet for those who anticipate resistance within the normal course of possibility,^
They will find a way of adapting and tacking that produces something
superior to what they first imagined.

What must you begin today?

According to the Stoics, the circle of control contains just one thing: YOUR MIND.^^

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work;
^Though not all resistances are equal: we must be sure to take on the right ones for us and ignore the wrong ones;
^^Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.*
Carl Sagan

*Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy.

That’s what our art requires of us. We show up and we do it anyway, not because someone asked us to but because our persistent heart tells us we must.*
Bernadette Jiwa

That path you’re about to step on,
Is it a path with a heart?

*Bernadette Jiwa’s The Story of Telling blog: Doing the Work Anyway.