Building timeless value

Building something valuable over time takes patience and dedication.

Most of the time for me it looks like stewarding the vision more than anything else.

I'm constantly learning more of how involved my brain is in making my visions come through.

I've noticed how when something is my preference my brain guides my conscious and unconscious decisions towards that direction. 

Slowly but surely.

Instead of defining my future and today's success by the possession of something that age slowly eats up, I'm more and more clearly building the value upon non-materia and outside the "cool" or "popular" in my mind.

I could even talk about antient values, if the term would highlight more of the immaterial element of such things. 

Like deep meaningful friendships with the expence of time - and money, if needed.

Or authentic connection even with the price of making fool out of myself.

Deepend companionship with the price of unpopularity or less time spent in the circles where short term glory lays but is easily forgotten.

I'm learning to look more into what will stand time.

What is something that grows in timeless value while it has no in-the-market price or known value in any currency.

Where does the real life flow and resonate even when I'm gone.

In the hearts of the people, the lives that I've truly touched and served.

It's often a time of service behind the curtains, with no great splendor and with the taste of sacrifice of my own comfort or effective achievements. 

It is the slow steps when someone needs you and you cannot ask anything in return except for you seeing the glimmer in their eyes reflecting the timeless value of the moment.

True meanings are revealed with no fanfare or glitter nor spotlights.

In the mundane tired moments when you lay down your own rights to be seen or served.

When you choose to be present and gentle for the sake of the connection what's at stake.

Count in your season those moments when your glory and praise seeking soul is laid down while you do something good and with virtue in the secret.

Something that the world will never know or tell.

Something only you can give a real price to.

The cost of your attitude, your heart posture and eyes for the beauty in unlike moments and places.

Going low and slow for another when you hold no gain.

There's where you build your true fortune.

The one that time cannot touch to eat up, but which lives beyond in the hearts and souls of the people you so dearly choose to love.

There's where your timeless crown lies.

There's where the real gold dust hovers.

You steer the value you give with your today's vision. 

What is your vision like, dear?

How am I a ___? *fill in your secret dream identity*

What is the identity you secretly dream about?

For me it was for a long time dressed up in this question.

How am I a runner?

And here's a little backstory how I experienced myself deeply as a non athletic girl.

Growing up as one of the shortest girls in my class.

Having barely any sports hobbies, if biking to school and swimming once a week is not counted. 

Lacking all the decent sports equipment for school physical education classes.

I deeply viewed my identity through the non athletic girl framework.

I was no runner, I thought, while I still enjoyed long track runs and occasional orienteering at school. 

Have you ever thought how much the way you view yourself directs your daily choices?

When a few years back I started putting running shoes on, just to form a habit, my view of myself started slowly shifting more and more.

Making running safe began with my process of being okay with very little progress and enjoying the small repetitions.

If I felt really bad while running in the rain, I had made it okay for myself to stop and go back home with a smile.

I had over exceeded myself as my goal was to put on the sneakers for 21 times.

After the fourteenth time it suddenly changed.

I started longing for the feeling that I felt while running.

Like I longed for the ice cream on Summer holidays.

I am sharing my story because of one thing.

I am convinced that there is more available for you.

So, what is that identity you secretly dream about?

What is something simple you can choose to make a habit for yourself, that takes you one tiny step closer to that identity?

How powerful it truly is for you to realize what's out there for you.

And with the "out there" I mean in your empowered landscape.

In your ability to dream something good for yourself and then go take the tiny steps over and over.

And enjoying the process, seeing your identity slowly shift for you.

You have an enormous creativity hidden inside of yourself and yet there is this one thing, a beast I could say, guarding you so that you wouldn't tap into it.

A fear of failure.

And I know how that feels.

For several decades I was tied with it and still rewrite my story today in the area of exercise and my active identity.

Your fear of failure can be disguised in many different forms.

It can feel like a safety that your mind offers you in the old way of doing things in your daily life.

It can be seen in the disturbing thoughts that flood into your mind when you even consider changing your habits by adding a tiny new one.

Like the fear of life becoming so disciplined that all the fun is sucked out of it and the sun never shines again.

You know how our mind can be such a drama queen.

But you, my friend, can train your brain.

You can choose to make that one tiny habit safe for you to build.

Tell yourself what it is and treat yourself kindly when you do it today for the first time.

This is the day you will look back into.

This is that day when you can make a deep effect to your future everyday life.

Because you choose to be powerful in your own life.

Now.

Not tomorrow, not next year, but  t o d a y.

With a way that is sustainable enough for you to keep on practicing, even on your very worst day.

You choose and you can make that difference.

So now, name that dream and your tiny step, dear.

You can fill in the blank, simple as that.

How am I a ___?

Facing fears of the past and future

In that moment I thought my life as I knew it was over.

Such hopelessness I had never before experienced.

It was so personal.

And I was so vulnerable.

I had trusted someone without question.

Sought success without wisdom.

The scars of that season were both healing yet wounding.

I can still experience them throwing a shadow on my path today.

But when you get hurt in the deepest sense it sometimes opens your eyes to see.

Where to go and how lost you've been.

And the healing part of that pain is worth a lifetime of wisdom.

I was young and foolish.

And I learned my lesson.

How to judge yet with a soft heart.

And how to live free despite your mistakes, understanding that you're actually powerful.

After those mistakes I built stronger relationships and lived more fully.

My life as it is now was formed and redeemed by those huge mistakes I made.

Today I am finding new wisdom in what happened that day.

Who I already was and what I feared to happen.

And what I still do.

Finding the true form of my fears guided me in finding the blinding lies I am still believing now.

When you seek success it starts with your own heart.

What it is full and what its emptiness holds.

Look your fear in the eye while you hold space for healing.

Your past is not your limit as long as you face it.

As long as you let your heart stay soft and strong at the same time.

To be held.

To be called by its truest name, yet unknown.