Art Journal Entry Jan 3

Ann over at The Year of Living Non-Judgmentally, shares her morning mantra today and invites visitors to share theirs.

I shared what I painted as a page in my art journal on the weekend.

Also today, Leigh at Not Just Sassy on the Inside, invites people to share their thoughts and feeling on where peace begins for them. It is part of a challenge she has initiated for the month of January called, Journey2Peace. Throughout the month, Leigh will be posing questions, challenges, ideas on peace and inviting people to chime in with their thoughts and ideas.

And that is the beauty of this world of blogging. I read someone else’s thoughts and ideas, answer the invitations they post to share and am reminded of what is important for me, or, as in the case of both Ann’s and Leigh’s posts today, am given an opportunity to see where I have gone off track or slipped in my commitment to live from my heart.

I got caught up in my ego on the weekend. I got immersed in my own circular thinking about how it is someone else’s fault that something went the way it went. Which, of course, means, if they’re to blame for how it went, then they’re also responsible for how I felt about how it went. In which case, I get to abdicate responsibility for my thoughts, responses, actions, etc.

Abdicating my self-efficacy does not create peace in my heart, my mind and world. It only creates victimhood, self-pity and discord inside and outside of me. And while I might find it comforting to picture myself as riding high on one of the four horses of the apocalypse in self-righteous defense of my position, holding onto my inner dialogue as to why they’re wrong/I’m right only stirs up trouble in my heart. I can’t hold out arms of love when I’m holding my sword high in defense of my right to fight for peace of mind.

Peace of mind does not come from outside of me. It’s nexus is within me. I am its creator. I can also be its destroyer. I decide which path I choose. I decide which wolf I feed.

I gave succor to the wolf of self-pity, anger, blame and shame on the weekend.

It was of so human of me and, humbling. My response reminds me that it is a moment by moment choice I make to walk in peace, or not.

No one can make the choice for me. To create peace in my world I must be the peace I wish to create. I must  let go of playing in the mud of self-pity, blame and shame and tend to my garden in Love.

What about you? Where does peace begin for you? What are you watering your garden with today?