Dear Future Self,
This is a reminder to me and you and everyone else: Rest your mind enough!
Take time off, not just away from your screen, but not thinking about anything at all. It helps to keep pain and sickness away!
The reason why I say this is, that I try not to work on weekends, and most times I do this quite successfully.
As you might gather from this sentence, I don’t find this very easy. I always have new ideas coming that I want to try out, or think about tweaking this or that.
Getting my mind to not think about work, or not think at all, and just be present for a while will take some more practice.
Which is why I would like to share with you what happened this Saturday, while I was practising letting my mind be quiet.
I hope I will remember what happened better when I write this down, but in case we should have forgotten by the time you read this, it’s a reminder for you too.
Two of my house guests got sick and were in bed on Friday, and I started to feel unwell as well.
I sat in my usual spot outside for a while, but as it got loud there, I decided to go to the backyard, to tend to my vegetables.
First I started slowly, but the more I jumped around and removed weeds, put up support sticks and strings for some of the plants, the better I started to feel.
Until there was no feeling of sickness left in me. Instead, I was completely happy, a bit tired, but ready to take on anything again.
That feeling has remained since.
I have to admit that I keep forgetting to allow myself, or in my case, push myself, to have more fun times.
For the most part, I really enjoy what I do, so I’m perfectly content while I do it, but I’m also not shutting off my brain because I’m trying to solve problems, try to find new ideas, ways, approaches, be creative the whole week.
And I love all of that.
But while it makes me happy, it clearly still exhausts me and I need to get better at not just closing my computer, but to really get myself out of the thinking.
Which gardening will do for me. Always.
So more of that!
I really hope I will not have forgotten by the time I’m you. And that I will even been able to allow much more space for that from now on.
I wish you a wonderful day.
Love,
Verena
► My Future Self Journal ▼
Why do I write to my future self? ◼︎ ●
Self-Actualizing, personal development, the search for more options, finding out how to actually live our best lives, or simply experiencing growth and change for any reason, might feel weird, scary or uncertain.
Yet impermanence or becoming is something we all share.
I started to write and publish some diary post a while ago, and looking back at them even a month later, I felt like I should rewrite them because my perspective had changed so much.
But that would be like trying to erase the most essential part: the journey.
We don't just arrive at a certain point, we struggle, fight, fall down, run in the wrong direction, come back, stand up, fall again and yet continue.
We laugh, love, enjoy, paint, sing, dance, discuss and find ourselves surprised by the unexpected. With every experience, we spiral up and can dive into deeper levels of experience and understanding if we allow ourselves to do so.
This series is a documentation of a journey into the unknown.
It shows how vulnerability and fear can be present, and welcomed, and not stop us.
It's about admitting mistakes and acknowledging how easily we can be wrong, no matter how mindful, present, in tune and aware we are.
We'll never know until we try.
But most of all it's about celebrating life in all its different forms and shapes, colours and sounds and tastes, in depth and lightness - to witness life's endless beauty and continuous unfolding.
We are all a part of life's magnificence, the question is: How much of it do we allow ourselves to enjoy and experience?
The more we open up and liberate ourselves from what we thought we knew, the more we allow to see things in new ways and the more love we share, the more magical life becomes.
May we open our present with presence and let our future selves continue to experience life wholeheartedly.
May my honesty inspire yours and show you that there is nothing to fear. Everything is working out for the greatest good. ❤️
With lots of love for you and this world,
Verena
