'Serenity' | ByHeart blog

By Heart Blog

Serenity

A How-to Guide

Is serenity eluding you right now?

Or, put another way:
Is serenity at the top of your wish list?

“

Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity.

Lao Tzu, author of 'Tao Te Ching'

“

And you would accept the seasons of your heart just as you have always accepted that seasons pass over your fields and you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Kahlil Gibran

“

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“

It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Charlotte Bronte

“

There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense.

Thomas Hobbes

We tend to associate serenity with repose, with quiet and inactivity.

But of course in the course daily life, serenity-as-repose is not very practical.

How do we maintain our composure while engaging in the excitement of life, at work, at home or out and about?

'Composed for repose' is my way of describing the feeling at Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, an experiment in creating a living space that could also honour people's needs for aesthetic enjoyment and restful reflection.

Before we begin, I'd like to invite you to pause for 5 seconds, and check:

over the last week, were there any offers of assistance or pointers on what could take you towards what you want that you swiftly dismissed because such good fortune would be too good to be true, or maybe because accepting such generosity would be unseemly?

To see serenity in the dips and the storms

SPACIOUS SPACING for bullet points

CONCLUSION

Etymology

Serene
mid-15c., "clear, calm," from Latin serenus "peaceful, calm, clear, unclouded" (of weather), figuratively "cheerful, glad, tranquil".

This was based on the Proto-Italic *(k)sero- "dry," from PIE root *ksero- "dry," source also of Greek xeros "dry, arid".

In English, the term has been applied to persons since 1630s.
(source: https://www.etymonline.com/word/serene )

The Barefoot Doctor offers this instruction-to-self, aka auto-suggestion (in AMPED 3: The Miracle, an album released in early 2019):

Peace and Calm

I choose to feel peace in my heart and my soul.

I choose to feel calm in my body.

To see serenity in the dips and the storms

WHATEVER THE ACTION

Photo by adam Kedem on Unsplash

You recognise the opportunity after the event. D'oh! This is the warm-up phase. Every time you recognise an opportunity in retrospect, congratulate yourself, because you're getting better at spotting them.
You stop yourself mid-sentence, because you're just heard yourself turning down something wonderful / helpful.
You hear yourself *about* to turn down something helpful / wonderful, and replace what you were about to say with your new default welcome: 'Yes, thank you'.
You start to see opportunities coming (rather than once they begin to slip away) and are ready to embrace them.
The new default has taken root, and it's now normal for you to embrace kindness and generosity flowing towards you. You genuinely enjoy and appreciate it as the regular way that things happen in your world.

Three stages of changing a habit

(I've included a pre- and a post- state, totalling five stages in all)

In writing this, I am thinking of you, reading these words.

May the future bestow wonderful surprises on you at regular intervals.

Play me a fantasy

Play me a fantasy.
What is yours?

Is it to:
'Speak in front of a gathering
and receive applause' - Imagine it.

'Have a mentor guide my first tentative steps
into a new endeavour' - Wish for it.

'Tell a secret I've been harbouring
so it's no longer a burden' - Hear your wish,
and permit it to be possible.

If you give either of these a go, I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

If you like the sound of using your imagination to tap into your greater potental, I'd be happy to help.

Drop me a line!

P.S. I will describe the 'Stepping out to get a larger view' manoeuvre in another post soon, and will add a link as soon as this is live.

Photo by Sophia Baboolal on Unsplash

The future is for you to make

Your future is uncharted.

More than that, your future cannot be chartered. It is too fluid for that - more like the sea than the dry land.

Your future is not determined by your past, or some pre-scripted destiny.

It is for you to make.

Your contribution matters.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Margarita Steinberg

I am a Leadership Coach with a specialism in Psychosynthesis psychology. I am the founder of ByHeart Coaching, and this blog grows out of my coaching work. I am also a qualified and experienced teacher, and draw on training in counselling skills.

I work with individuals and couples, as private clients; I also work with organisations through running leadership coaching programmes and group workshops.

PUBLICATIONS
A chapter on my innovative learning format using embodied learning appears in the book 'Disrupting traditional pedagogy: Active Learning in Practice' published by University of Sussex Press in June 2019.

In preparation: my first book 'One step at a time: how to thrive in a dynamic world'

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'Yes thank you'

A simple practice to embrace good things coming your way

Find out more about my work

Coaching with Psychosynthesis | ByHeart Coaching

Coaching with Psychosynthesis psychology is a powerful path to your goals | ByHeart Coaching with Margarita Steinberg

Coaching with Psychosynthesis | ByHeart Coaching

Coaching with Psychosynthesis psychology is a powerful path to your goals | ByHeart Coaching with Margarita Steinberg

How It Works | ByHeart Coaching

ByHeart's Six-Step Process for individuals and couples

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