Myrrhmade Love Where You Are Challenge!
Here’s the overview calendar of the Challenge with a snippet of each day’s topic. Check back here at Myrrhmade.com each day this month for details, tasks, mindset shifts, and inspiration. Let us know in the comments how you do!
Day 1.) Love is a verb
I love you. I (subject) love (verb) you (object). When we love something, we care for it, we nurture it, we tend to it.
Many of us live much of our lives on autopilot, up to our ears with reacting to the world as it comes at us and doing our best to survive. In the midst of this pandemic we're surviving physically more than ever as well as metaphorically. In order to shift from surviving and work toward thriving, we need to intentionally direct our thoughts and choose our actions. There’s no guarantee that anything will get easier later, particularly if we’re betting on our future selves to take care of the messes we make today.
We need to pay it forward for ourselves. Our future selves will thank us.
The best time to do something was twenty years ago. The second best time is now. (paraphrased Chinese proverb)
In order to Love Where You Are, you need to actively Love where you are. When you intentionally invest some of your time in your surroundings, you will begin to shift how you feel.
Daily Challenge:
Put your brain to work for you.
Instead of cataloging what you don’t like about your situation (which will likely lead to overwhelm, frustration, and other negative emotions), consciously upgrade your thoughts with such as:
How can I (actively) Love where I am?
What do I already KNOW I should be doing (but maybe am not) and how can I make it easier to do those things?
For now, let go of whatever comes up about why you aren’t doing them and direct your mind toward solutions. You might be surprised at how you already have some great ideas.
How can I Love where I am?
What is already good about where I am?
Daily Mindset Mantra: Love is a verb.
The things we nurture flourish. How can we nurture ourselves and our surroundings, where we are, to help ourselves flourish?
Bonus task: Get rid of something, particularly something you dislike, something that is broken or has holes, anything janky can go. :D
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My experience: I have a lot going on in my life. I'm approximately 40% of the way through 10 straight months of solo-parenting/homeschooling, I'm in school myself (classes are all online this semester again), I just started a business, and I'm reveling in writing here. I'm up to my neck in "shoulds" and am doing this challenge as much for myself as for you.
What do I KNOW I should be doing? I know I should be doing a better job enjoying my life and should intentionally care for my surroundings. While deployments and pandemics may feel like they're putting life on hold (as well as any other host of life events any of you may be experiencing) life is still going.
THIS is our life. Right now. And I want to unfurl my proboscis and slurp me some nectar! So I decided to not only challenge myself to write 28 posts for 28 days (29 in 30 days if you count the sneak preview post) but to do the challenge ahead of schedule!
So here I am. I'm committed to writing these posts, doing these challenges, nurturing myself where I am, leading the way, and showing you the difference these simple tasks can make.
What I got rid of: This bag of clothes. While it'll spend a couple of days in my trunk because we don't even leave the property more than once or twice a week at present, it's out of my house, and ready to be dropped in a donation bin.
I've designed this challenge to build upon small successes, help you tailor it to your own life, and give you a variety of tasks. Some may come naturally or already be part of your habitual life. Some may be new, and some will simply NOT work for you at all.
Keep what is worth keeping and let the rest fall away.
Make sure to check back here tomorrow for the next challenge, the next tips, and the next dose of the Myrrhmade Love Where You Are Challenge.
#myrrhmade #lovewhereyouarechallenge
OK - I said I was going to give this challenge a whirl, so here goes! What is already good about where I am?: I enjoy that the job I have here allows me to help my extended family when they need a leg up or when a little extra cash can make the difference between OK and good. I like that my parking space where I work (when not teleworking) gives me stupendous views of the Potomac River every morning and evening. I almost always stop a moment to drink it in. How can I Love where I am?: This is going to take a little more thought. Mostly, where I am geographically feels like a constant stream of minor assaults and that makes it challenging to think about other senses of the phrase "where I am."
ReplyDeleteYes! It sounds like your "why" you're living where you are is a strong enough reason to be there. It may be helpful to amplify and keep your eye on your "why" to help it outweigh the drawbacks. If your "why" really isn't strong enough, then you have other decisions to make.
DeleteI'm loving our new furniture arrangement in our four-season porch room. We can now sit with our feet up and look out the windows at the bird feeder. We are so blessed with a wonderful assortment of ordinary-extraordinary birds who visit everyday.
ReplyDeleteThis has meant that we are claiming more space in a shared household for our use. This end of the room went basically unused for too long, with furniture that has been in the exact same place for 25 years. It is time for a change of head, heart, and that brown floral chair.