{"id":274,"date":"2019-01-10T23:58:25","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T23:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newfutures.ca\/?p=274"},"modified":"2019-01-10T23:58:25","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T23:58:25","slug":"nurture-satisfaction-contentment-fulfillment-and-other-big-rich-concepts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newfutures.ca\/?p=274","title":{"rendered":"Nurture, Satisfaction, Contentment, Fulfillment, and other Big, Rich Concepts"},"content":{"rendered":"

I recently encouraged people to \u201cDO<\/em> more of what nurtures you in 2019<\/strong>.\u201d I believe this is always good advice, and not simply as a new year\u2019s resolution: Because that is what I have been increasingly doing for some time on my advancing life journey; with increasing maturing success and satisfaction. But when I began to reflect on what exactly that meant for me, I found myself stumbling over that word \u201cnurture.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of my personal challenges, my \u201cstumbling stones,\u201d is my propensity to abdicate the middle ground for all or nothing thinking. For example, I tend to infuse big rich concepts like the above with all the meaning I can put into them, then seek to live into them. Which makes it extraordinarily difficult to find satisfaction, pleasure and gratitude in my everyday living; let alone serene contentment.<\/p>\n

Even though I know<\/em> I have this tendency\u2014this unhelpful habit\u2014I often forget. Then trip over it, and slide into fuzzy, scattered, thinking. Although I enthusiastically encourage, promote, and practice Conscious Aging as a Spiritual Practice<\/strong> (CASP), I still find myself reverting un<\/u><\/em>-consciously into behaviours and fears conditioned by my adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). When I become conscious<\/em> of doing so I can, and generally do, consciously <\/em>try to step back into my CASP training. Whereupon I tell myself to remember that my aim is for \u201cprogress, not perfection,<\/strong>\u201d as 12-Steppers say.<\/p>\n

Each of us has our better self. To remember and honour that at all times is a really good idea.\u00a0 But when we forget that, as often happens, it is counter-productive and self-<\/em>defeating if (and when) we berate our self for being our less-than-ideal self. This is akin to self-abandonment by the best friend we have. Yet I do it more often than I care to admit. And I know others who do it too.<\/p>\n

Don Miguel Ruiz recommends Four Agreements<\/em> (1997) we can each make with our self that will improve our self-nurture, self-care, and everyday experience of wellbeing. These are four very good, easy to understand, and easy to apply pieces of advice that yield results each time we remember to practice them.<\/p>\n