Can you trust yourself with your life?

Do you break promises to yourself? What might happen if for the month of September, you didn't?

Photo by Eilis Garvey on Unsplash

It’s the first of the month.

I love the beginning of a new month - a chance to begin again.

I especially love a new beginning in September.

Shiny shoes, new pencil case, a new ‘school term’ of life begins.

It’s a great time to recommit to a path or to start a new one.

I’ve had a very interesting month. I have been meditating for 25 days straight (part of my commitment to meditate for 100 days - you can join me here) so I thought August would be a quiet, still month but watching my thoughts has been quite alarming/interesting/hilarious and not very still at all.

But I’m learning about discipline and commitment.

About turning up, even when I don’t want to.

Which helped me have a huge aha in our Heart Leap Masterclass with top coach Caroline Ferguson this month. Caroline was presenting on how to overcome resistance, stop procrastinating and make it happen.

I got off the call and burst into tears.

I was journalling the other day about how difficult I found it to trust (men/life etc etc) But ‘I can trust myself’ I wrote.

But attending the masterclass I realised how often I break promises to myself and break my own trust over and over again.

Just in small ways but if you can’t trust yourself with the small stuff then what about the big stuff….?

Caroline talked about her top value being ‘honour’ and the mantra that changed her life was:

‘Today is not the day I break my promise to myself.’

I wondered if September might the month where I commit to NOT breaking a promise to myself.

September is not the month I break my promises to myself.

I am going to start small with three doable promises.

• I commit to meditate every day for 30 minutes (I’ve been doing this for the last 25 days so have built up some momentum)

• I commit to writing for a minimum of 17 minutes every day on my memoir. [Thank you top coach Michael Heppell. Here’s a podcast where I interviewed Michael for the Alnwick Story Fest about his book Write That Book]

• I commit to 3 minutes of yoga and two press-ups a day.

What three promises to yourself can you make this month?

Here are ten quotes to inspire your journey.

1. “You are never too old to start over. Every day is a chance to make changes to create the life we want.”
   ― Karon Waddell

2. “Everything begins at the beginning, and quite often the beginning begins when you shift your mind in a new direction.”
   ― Louie Herron

3. “New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu

4. “No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.”
   — Buddha

5. “Darkness must pass
   A new day will come
   And when the sun shines
   It will shine out the clearer.”
   — JRR Tolkien

6. “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited about what could go right.”
   — Tony Robbins

7. “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.”
   — Dolly Parton

8. “We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

9. “Don’t worry. Just when you think your life is over, a new storyline falls from the sky and lands right in your lap.” – Rebekah Crane

10. “Be messy and complicated and afraid and show up anyways.” – Glennon Doyle

P.S I plan to facilitate The Artist’s Way at 1pm on a Thursday for 12 weeks from 20th September for paid subscribers.The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is an an incredible 12 week ‘unleash your creativity’ course. You will need to buy the book and I will facilitate weekly zoom calls on a Thursday lunchtime. I will post more details soon but just wanted to give you a heads up.