REIGNITING A SENSE OF PURPOSE

1) How Many days did you do your Morning Pages /MPs?
Most days… but not always the full three pages. Life is complicated at the moment so some days I barely even managed one.  (Which is, perhaps, when we should be concentrating the most on our MPs.)

2) Did you do an Artist Date?
See above for complicated life, but the truth is I didn’t make it a priority.  Hmmm.  Why not?

3) Did you take your Walks?
See above – plus the smoke from all the forest fires burning made the air really unhealthy, so I had an ‘indoor’ week.

4) What ‘ahas’ did you discover this week?
This is the first week I have done the ‘tasks’ properly. This week they were Touchstones, Legacy and Mentoring.

TOUCHSTONES:
Julia asked us to write down 25 things we loved, 5 each from the following categories; Taste, Touch, Smell, Sound and Sight. What I found interesting was that, apart from the ‘Taste’ section which involves spending (albeit grocery) money, none of the others cost a single penny.  How can you put a price on hearing your grandchildren giggling, or them giving you a ‘kiss-cuddle’? What about the glorious sound of the water running down the gutters when the snow finally – finally – melts after a five-month long winter? The smell of laundry that’s been dried outside?  The feel of smooth piano keys under your fingertips? Watching the sun blaze red in the sky?

LEGACY:
When it boils right down to it, I would like to be remembered first and foremost as a good mother, sister, daughter, grandmother and friend.  I’m never going to impact world events, but I hope I’m remembered as having had a positive impact on the lives of those close to me. (I would have loved to have been able to add ‘wife’ to that list, but that’s not to be.) I would also like to be remembered for having told a few good, uplifting stories that touched peoples’ hearts and made them laugh, cry and smile.

MENTORING:
I didn’t find myself able to reach out to a younger person as asked, but I did reach out to  the woman who was my greatest writing mentor.  I haven’t seen her for a while, but Julia’s prompts allowed me to tell this woman what a profound impact she has had on my life. I will always be grateful for her encouragement and support.

4) Did you experience any synchronicity this week?
It’s a bit like being pregnant, isn’t it?  When you’re pregnant, you notice how many pregnant women there are out there. It seems every time I’ve turned on my laptop this week something has popped up on my screen that has to do with purpose and intention. It’s as if life is contriving to keep me focused, not just on what I want and what I feel my purpose is, but what I need to achieve it. Now it’s up to me to follow through. (And that’s the hard part!!)

5) Did anything come up repeatedly in your memoir that you suspect might bring you a sense of purpose?
This week I charted ages 15-20 and what surprised me was what huge changes occurred in my life at that time and how I navigated them.  I left school, didn’t get into the course I wanted, so settled for something else that took me on a completely different path.  But there – always there – in the background was a little voice niggling at me to follow my dream. For various reasons I didn’t.  But the voice was there then as it remains now, the message unchanged.

Interesting.