Day Fifty Nine
Ever felt on top of the world? Like you were invincible and bulletproof? How about depressed or like you could do nothing right?
Continue reading “You Are What You Feel”Don’t forget to Breathe
Day Twenty Two
My team at work are quite interesting. I work as part of a think tank/ innovation lab so it’s expected that our approach to work will be rather different to the rest of the business .
Continue reading “Don’t forget to Breathe”Big Rocks
Day seven.
So you’ve got some big goals and even bigger dreams to achieve? Consider those as your big rocks.
You can’t change the face of of your big rocks overnight. So don’t expect anything to happen immediately, you’re going to have to be long term focused to truly shift and change things.
This concept of big rocks is one I’m slowly thinking about as I consider what it truly takes to transform a life.
Addictions are also big rocks, so are any other habits, good or bad that we’ve consistently held for so long that now we struggle not to enact them.
I won’t be able to erode an addiction in the short term but with constant action, meditation and attention to it, slowly and surely I will erode it.
Actions are like water, they are the substance that eventually cause big rocks to dissolve.
I’m still developing this concept more so we’ll see where it all leads but I’m certainly intrigued by it and it helps me with my sobriety.
SRZ
MQIC
Gratitude
Day five
I’m grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful to have great friends and family. I’m grateful to be employed. I’m grateful to have dreams and aspirations that this pandemic hasn’t destroyed even if it’s delayed some of it.
My friend sent me a message yesterday, a very simple one. Keep going he said. That was all I needed to hear.
Writing this blog on this occasion is to help keep me sober. I’m not paying attention to the readership although I appreciate anyone and everyone who stops by.
So I often just assume that nobody is reading that way I will keep my intention pure. I’m doing this for me to become better.
That said, when you get a message that tells you that you’re doing something right and you should keep going, it’s encouraging to say the least. So, bro, if you read this, thank you 🙏🏾
I’m grateful
I have much to be grateful for. Much to be hopeful for. Much to be expectant about even as the start of this year feels like an overspill of last year.
It will pass.
It always does
But gratitude has staying power. Long after the gesture, the experience and even the person has gone. Your gratitude for them, for it can still remain.
It’s a choice
I don’t have to wait for something incredibly amazing to happen before I choose to exercise my gratitude, in fact I don’t have to wait for anything at all.
I can just choose to find things to be grateful about.
I’m grateful for my sobriety.
I’m grateful to be alive
I’m grateful to whoever reads this.
SRZ
MQIC
Accepting the things I can’t change
Day Four
Today I’ve been thinking a lot about things I have no control over. It seems as though in England we are about to go into another full blown lockdown. Not that right now is any different to what that would mean but I guess there was some hope of finding a new normal soon.
I’ve worried myself thinking about the possibility of being made redundant, losing my job and not being able to look after myself.
Job hunting in this current economy feels like a daunting task and I had to remind myself of how fortunate I currently am to not have to deal with that.
I’m currently on secondment which will be wrapping up by end of February and I worried about whether I would get a renewed contract with this team or not.
I thought about my dad travelling to Africa during this time and I worried for his safety and safe return back home.
I morbidly began to think about what would happen in the eventuality of the unspeakable regarding my parents. Would I be prepared? Would my family? We have no clarity on what to do in the event of…XYZ.
All of these worries are things I can’t control. Losing my job through redundancy is a luck of the draw, it’s all dependent on what’s happening within the business and whether what I do at my company is considered worthwhile to keep me around.
My concerns about my parents are also for the most part out of my control. I can’t determine anything happening to them just like they can’t control anything happening to me. Our transition from this life unfortunately more often than not will come as a surprise to us and our loved ones
But, what I can do is be as prepared for that ultimate eventuality by having the necessary conversations with the right people so that I know what needs to be done and they know what I would need them to do as well.
It’s hard to accept that there are so many things we have no control over, so many things we can’t change. It’s very hard to accept that and be at peace with that.
I think this is where my addiction springs into action. It wants to be in control. I want to be in total control of something in life and I guess I’m in control of something that really has control over me (read it a few times to make sense of it)
My addiction gives me the allusion of control while imprisonment is really what it’s offering me.
I become a prisoner to it, a slave to my lust, a captive to my obsessions and fantasies.
Today, what I realised is that I have so many conversations to be had. Conversations that I’ve held myself back from having for fear of what it would mean for me and the people involved.
Yet, I now realise that the more I withdraw from having these conversations, the more I run to pornography and lust and comfort food and emotional eating and binging on tv to sooth my unmet and unfelt needs.
As a result, I feel numb. I numb myself to the pain as well as the joy. Wanting one yet afraid to experience the other.
I accept that there are things I can’t change. I acknowledge that there is not much I can do about much.
And accepting this fact brings with it a sense of freedom. Since I can’t change so much, I can live life within the parameters of the little things I do have control over.
As I’ve heard it said many times before. Do your best and forget the rest.
SRZ
MQIC
6: Stillness For Steel-ness
Okay, so steel-ness is not a word
But I hope the wordplay worked
I’m in need of some quiet time
I should make time to meditate and be still
But I haven’t done it in a long time
I keep putting it off. There’s never enough time
Yet my inner person is craving it
So why do I avoid something I crave so much?
Because I fear it at the same time
I worry that I won’t like who I find waiting for me within if I took the time to look
I’m worried that before steel-ness comes from stillness, it will break me first
Perhaps it’s all the frustration I fail to to discuss or disclose for fear of upsetting others
Or maybe it’s the disappointments I bury deep inside to help me better cope with life
Who truly knows?
The inner me does
I know this may all be too hippie dippie for some. Too woo woo for others and even bizarre for another set of people but this is me
I’m a mixture of urban black boy meets spiritual interests, centred and grounded in creative exploits
I can pretend to be someone else, something else but it would never satisfy me in the end
So stillness it is
At some point I will overcome the fear of what lies beneath the surface and decide to take a look
How bad can it be?
Be well
SRZ
Be Still
Sometimes I write from experience
Most days I theorise on what I think about this world of ours is about and how things could or should be
Currently, my life is becoming more demanding and busy, yet my strategy for facing this somewhat demanding phase hasn’t changed. I haven’t taken stock of the fact that life is asking a completely different question of me, one for which, if I am to succeed, I must come up with a much better answer
Enjoy The Present
Who doesn’t like receiving gifts?
A present is an unrequested, often unearned showing of appreciation from one person to another
It shouldn’t be confused with a reward. A reward is given due to some form of effort to gain it but a present is gifted because a person chose to do so without any form of work on the part of the receiver
You and I are given such a gift each and every day
It’s called another day of life, another 24 hours, a sunrise and sunset, another moment of breathing in and breathing out
Unearned and we couldn’t request for more if we tried
So enjoy and appreciate your ‘present’ – let go of the past otherwise you’re doomed to repeat it or at the very least, mentally relive it unnecessarily
Worry not about your future for it has yet to manifest and worrying about it won’t make it come any sooner
The present is the gift most taken for granted and yet within it is the future hidden in seed form and lessons of the past serving as a foundation to build from
You have everything you need
Today, this very moment, right NOW is all you have
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we call it the present
Gratitude for any gift goes a long way
Be grateful for yours
Happy Sunday
Be well
SRZ
Wonderful You
This is weird or least you will likely think I’m weird for even writing this
But this is dedicated to you, yes I do mean you, the person reading this
We will likely never meet face to face and therefore I have no real grounds to say what I am about to say other than it being true. But, if you’re anything like the rest of us, you most likely get very uncomfortable when being praised or complimented
why?
Relax!
It’s a beautiful sunny day in London today
The sun is out, giving me that sunny feeling and all I want to do is be out and about doing stuff but I also realise that I kind of don’t want to
i realise that because the sun is out I feel like I should be out there doing something, some kind of fun activity that will make me feel like I am making the most of life – but what is ‘making the most of life’ really about? Continue reading “Relax!”
