It’s tempting to dumb down your work or go for a shortcut or a quick hit. Worst of all, to give up. Please don’t.*
Seth Godin

Ah, thirty-eight to forty-two. They were the hardest years of my life. I almost left ministry.**
Older pastor

Ideas come to us with a simple joy,
But reality makes everything so much more complex,
Even unrelenting and utterly perplexing,
Yet, if we are able to push through,
Discovering, Growing – becoming agents, not victims,
We come through to a place of harmony,
When good and bad, joy and pain
come together to show the next step.

I was thirty nine –
I kept going – but upping
the learning and exploring;
And, though I realised that it wasn’t what I really wanted to be about,
The crucible for dreamwhispering,
When I left, it was with greater clarity and a purpose –
I was leaving for something,
Rather than from something.

*Seth Godin’s blog: Crickets;
**Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt.

We don’t win our depth and our inner form and our texture and our truth without the fire. Ordeal by fire.*
M. C. Richards

Apply yourself to thinking through difficulties – hard times can be softened, tight squeezes widened, and heavy loads made lighter for those who can apply the right pressure.**
Seneca

Not the path you saw yourself walking? –
There are limitations to our lives that come with being who and where we are,
Restrictions within and without,
But that’s not the end of the matter,
We still have a mighty lot of choice,
Having within us unique ways of applying pressure
as only we can;
Identifying and valuing and developing just what these are
changes everything:
Learning creates possibility.
Once we learn to see how the world works,
we can show up to make things better^ –
It may even be the path you did’t want to be on
is exactly the one you delight in.

*M. C. Richards’ Centering;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Learning in August.

Peace of mind is an inside job, unrelated to fame, fortune, or whether your partner loves you.*
Anne Lamott

Where there is peace, there is no fear. Where there is fear, there is no peace. So then, the journey for peace begins within our hearts … When you have won the battle, you now carry within you what the world desperately needs.**
Erwin McManus

I’m trying to live into my name Geoffrey,
It means Peace of God;
There will always be more battles without unless
I win the battle for peace within,
To become a person of connection and generous
in mercy and grace,
Slow to anger, steadfast in love –
Some list!,
My hardest work
across a lifetime, but I hope that one day,
You will be able to call me by my name.

It doesn’t have to begin with a name,
Only our desire to bring something precious into the world
for the prospering of others.

*Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything;
**Erwin McManus’ The Way of the Warrior.

Over the long run … the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self image gets in the way.*
James Clear

What might change if we understood meaningful action to be something we could let happen, simply by standing out of the way?**
Oliver Burkeman

New habits struggle in the wrestling match that ensues
with the old self,
And with them, our hopes;
I must get out of my own way and allow the change
that is inevitable –
A new self to emerge.

*James Clear’s Atomic Habits;
**Oliver Burkeman’s The Imperfectionist newsletter: In Your Own Way.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.*
George Bernard Shaw

If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system … You do not rise to the levels of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.**
James Clear

It’s not just about changing your mind,
New thoughts will need the support of new practices
or environments, and sometimes new people
or no people:
Because thinking, it turns out, is a social act,
and to think freely, to think differently,
to think independently, you sometimes need
to escape from the herd.^

We’re developing flexibility of mind and heart and activeness,
And becoming more human.

*Jonathan Hoban’s Walking With Your Wolf;
**James Clear’s Atomic Habits;
^Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt.

Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith … Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith the the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.*
Paul Tillich

We can grasp the fact that at any moment what seems most certain to us is an illusion. It is an illusion that it preceded a further revelation of ourselves.**
M. C. Richards

Are you sure?

… this is the final and ultimate version of who you can be?
… that you can’t start again?
… you’re unable to forgive someone and move on?
… that you can’t lose weight/get fit?
… you’re unable to complete a project?
… that next time, with the right tweaks, you can make “this” better?
(… whatever it is that you feel so certain about right now)?

I doubt that, and
maybe you should, too.

Doubt is a key to many locked doors.

*Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt;
**M. C. Richards’ Centering.

There’s no creative running in the Olympics. No style points. No bonus for running the race in an interesting way. The only thing that matters is how fast you get from here to there … The clarity is so magnetic. A definite start. A definite finish. And clarity of what goes in between.
Gabe Anderson

stoic joy – the joy that comes from purpose, excellence, and duty**
Ryan Holiday

This isn’t about life being like a race,
More a marathon than a sprint, and all of that;
Life is the bigger story (unique to each of us),
The interesting stuff between the start and finish –
Meaning, artistry, commitment –
A gift to others and
joy for us.

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Creative Running;
**Ryan Holiday’ and Stephen Hanselman’s The Daily Stoic.

Let us allow our wild spirits to roam unfettered and unbound. Let us roar and howl and voice our deepest yearnings without caring what others will think about us.*
Keri Smith

Success is the product of daily habits – not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.
James Clear

Of all things, it was his brother’s betrayal that
set Joseph^ upon a path to astonishing accomplishment that
he could not have imagined:
It can sometimes be the actions of others that
let loose our wild spirit –
This is how it was for me;
Criticised and betrayed,
I both came upon and make a path that
brings greater fulfilment and
joy,
Though it has not been all at once –
I walk a slow journey in the same direction –
Nor am I roaring and howling:
Quite the opposite – I prefer hidden and quiet.

I hope you find your wild:
You don’t have to wait
for the criticism and betrayal.

*Keri Smith’s The Wander Society;
**James Clear’s Atomic Habits;
^Genesis 37.

From the beginning I have believed the world an amazing place, full of marvels, unheard of, not-yet-experienced.*
M. C. Richards

I’ve come to understand, a common feature of all aspects of spirituality is a loss of self, a letting go, a willingness to embrace something outside of ourselves, a willingness to listen rather than talk, a recognition that we are small and the cosmos is large.**
Alan Lightman

At the centre of everything,
The stillness and the being –
I am small and
the universe so big.

Oh my!

*M. C. Richards’ Centering;
**Alan Lightman’s The Transcendent Brain.

Plenty of people are “masters” of their universe while lacking the most important power there is … power over their own actions and choices.*
Ryan Holiday

Time that has passed is certainly irrecoverable, but what has happened within that time is unassailable and inviolable. Passing time is therefore not only a thief, but a trustee.**
Viktor Frankl.

Here is wisdom:
To see and understand all that time holds as trustee
for us, rather than as thief;
Everything focuses differently when we find
or make our purpose,
Riches of understanding and knowledge available
for the present,
For the benefit of others,
For beauty and joy.

Towards this,
It may be worth wasting a little time,
To slow down and take a closer look
at the greater story within.^

*Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^This is what dreamwhispering is about; get in touch for support with this.