What you seek is seeking you.
~Rumi

someone in my facebook stream posted this earlier, and I have been pondering it all day. I have had a day of surprises and upheavals, big and small. some so tiny just a blip! but that blip represents one teeny step closer to my goals. There is so much I want to see and do and be, there is so much out there to experience. My wonder at life hasn’t changed since I was 4 years old…but I am coming/growing into a large dose of practicality. With this comes the feeling that what I want for the most part I already have, the rest will come to me by and by. This quote really nailed this feeling for me, it nailed it.

another quote I like along the same lines is:

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
~Joseph Campbell

I believe guidance comes from within. You know what you want in life, and you know how to get there. Intuitively, I believe. If you are unsure of who you want to be, what kind of life you want to have, how you wish to live, when you want to do things, where you want to be in your life’s path, why you feel motivation for and in your life, then first thing is to sit with yourself in some quiet place and look within. Ask yourself what you want, try to understand why you want it. Then, find the resources you need to make it happen. Resources are anything that helps you move forward in life, anything that helps you shape your existence into the life you want. music, books, websites, other people, all sorts of things can be resources. Use the net to find the information that will help you. Make an effort to meet and befriend people you are compatible with. for example, if you want to be a positive, resilient, kind and creative person, surround yourself with positive, resilient, kind and creative people.

I learn best through reading. A few books that helped me to shape and transform my life are:

The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity (her site is temporarily down). like the author I believe that everyone is inherently a creative being. This book will help you develop and nurture your innate creativity, be it writing, painting, film making, photography, crafting, whatever. It will also help you to respect and nurture yourself and your soul.

The 7 Habits of Highly Creative People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change. This book will help you learn essential time management skills. for me it helped me to move past living in constant crisis mode because I learned to spend the bulk of my time in proactive and preventative behaviors. I also learned to change the way I thought of any interaction and to improve my communication.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Self-Mastery. this book…deeply changed my life. It changed me as a person who subconsciously consistently sought conflict and chaos into a self-aware person who consistently seeks peace, positivity, and growth. I learned fundamental ways of looking inside myself to understand who I was, why I did the things I did, and why I reacted to others the way I did. This book helped me to truly understand that everything I did was a choice, and as such I always had control over how I chose to walk and be in this world.

I’m re-reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, a wonderful book by Stephen Covey. I’ve picked up this book and read it a number of times, but have yet to take on the 7 habits as an integral part of my psyche. I know it’s good info that can help me progress in life, but a part of me is scared of the changes I would have to make within myself in order to do so. I’ve come to see that in order for me to improve myself and my life, a part of me literally has to die. In order to become the Trula that is kind, that is giving, that is trusting, that keeps her word, that is truthful, and so on and so forth, the Trula that is mean, that is stingy, that lies, that is paranoid, and so on and so forth…well that Trula has to die. and that is a scary feeling.

So I’m starting with the 30-Day Test that Covey suggests. It’s a challenge where for just 30 days: Make small commitments and keep them. Be a light, not a judge. Be a model, not a critic. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I know in my mind I am responsible for my actions, my effectiveness, my own happiness. Now is the time to know it in my heart. To live it.

One of the exercises is to listen to your language and the language of the people around you.  How often do you use and hear reactive phrases such as “if only” and “I can’t” or “I have to”? WOW this is deep for me because I say stuff like this all day long most days. So just changing the way I speak will affect the way I think and thus the way I act.  I feel empowered already!

Personal growth has been a big passion of mine for many years. It’s a journey, really, with no set ending as far as I can see because there is so much I need to learn about myself, about other people, about how to be a good person in this world, among other things, that it seems I will be always learning and growing to the end of my days.

At one point I had a positivity blog set up then I merged it with my creativity blog Seed & Flame…I decided to start a separate blog for/about my zine project Positive Emergence because this topic needs to be shouted from the rooftops! There is so much negativity out there in the world, so much hatred and anger and pain and misery. From the news to the media to movies and more, everyone and everything seemd to be focused on exuding snarkiness, meannes, even downright filth and horror. It can seem so overwhelming but I truly believe that most people want to do and be good. Most people want to live positive, clean, beautiful lives.

So I decided to share my journey with the world. Come along with me…yes?