My mornings are meetings with myself

I ask questions about priorities

Questions about goals

Where I’m at

What are my roles within my own company

The company of the self

I am CEO in here

Nobody else

I rise

Or fall

In this company of one

A lonely place at times

And yet I always come

At moments I have sat and wept in shame

With no one else to see

Others I have been on fire

My head packed full of dreams

And sometimes I have limped in lame

Yet every morning without fail

I show up round here to greet myself

Write the minutes and take note

Most days I end up writing

“Still a long way to go”

*We all have a long way to go. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think that, but also, most of us have also done some things as well.

Those achievements should be acknowledged and I don’t think I have ever done that properly within my morning meetings with self. And yes, these mornings are real. I just stepped out of one to write this blog post.

I have a lot of different roles. Business partner, life partner, mother, friend, sister, aunt, admin, writer, poet.

Each morning I break down what is important and vitally necessary today. Where did my priorities become skewed yesterday, because they always do? Gods laugh when humans make plans, true story.

On my recent retreat I realised just how often I weight my achievements on the future and don’t acknowledge them as they pass.

We all do this. Or the humble do. And I am humble. Humble on purpose, humble because I have found it to be the wisest thing to be. The least hurtful and wasteful for me. I am humble out of a desperate desire for self presentation.

“Pride goeth before a fall” is not just an empty adage, I have tripped over pride more times than I can count. I have run into entire brick walls of pride and toppled screaming from its lofty heights. I know pride is enemy number one and to be avoided at all costs, but you can distance yourself too far from your achievements.

“I want you to write your author bio” said Tina, the author and all round brilliant lady who was leading our retreat.

I have written plenty of these in my time but had always ended up scratching them out if I could on social platforms. These days it’s another of those limbo things – I’m evolving, why comment on a project in motion?

Tina wasn’t having any of that and she had done a bit of research on me. Had read this blog, knew about Audacity. Knew a little about my solo travels and adventures.

“There were things here to celebrate, Things that would inspire people to read my work.”

I hummed and hawed and felt uncomfortable. I didn’t complete the exercise. I still feel uncomfortable and at my morning meetings I’ve been trying to unravel it all.

I loved creating Audacity magazine and when I look back at the work and effort, the end product. The something of value from absolutely nothing. All of those words, all of that craft and work but mostly, all of that experience gained, I am both proud and humble.

Proud because I did it. Humble because I’m not quite sure how.

I look at my two poetry books which I treated more as experience into the world of self-publishing then the giving them the respect they deserved as a meaningful body of my creative work.

I’m proud that I created them but humble because I know my best writing comes from a connection to something larger and better than I could ever be. I can’t maintain that state consistently. Therefore I can’t claim ownership to it. My poetry is wild and free. I gain insights into my soul and experiences by writing it and leaving the words unravel without curating or place g boundaries around it. Which is why I love it so much, but also why I don’t feel proud of it. It’s not hard work, it’s soul work, and it writes itself.

And then there is my adventuring all over the place by biking or hiking, travelling. I didn’t realise other people, particularly women find this particularly inspirational until another writer said she found it so. These things are interesting to me, I’m proud of the discomfort, anxiety, terror I have had to overcome at times in order to do such things, especially some of my solo and more remote journeys.

But I am humbled by the fact that I was genuinely fearful at times, and I didn’t always cope in ways that I was proud of. I failed stupidly once or twice, and although I may have been a solo female bike rider or hiker seemingly doing intrepid things – I had help.

I had help from the guy who helped picked my fully loaded motorbike up on the side of the road once. I had another kind gentleman show me the way out of a side gorge when I became lost near a campsite at one point. I have had people give me an extra blanket – when I didn’t pack enough warm things and experienced a freezing cold snap in an outback campsite.

There are plenty of other instances where yes, I have done something I’m proud of, but also, learnt something that humbled me. Usually deeply.

I see now that we can be both. In fact we must be.

It’s that balance thing. Humble smoothes away the glittery useless edges of proud. It buffs proud to a gentle glow, a comforting thing that can lodge warmly in the chest and take the chill off lifes more difficult times, when we need to lean back on an old experience. And pride can boost us when our sense of self worth is lying defeated in the gutter.

Humble tempers proud, and proud makes humble useful. People who are overly self depracating never rise, and those who are too self inflating, never learn the experience of a good fall.

And this is all very well to draw a conclusion about, but I’m still working on my bio.

It’s difficult to write a neat and tidy summation of such a sprawling mind and life. I would pay someone else to do it, but I see the value in untangling my own inner lights.

I hope it inspired you to consider your own bio. Fifty words to sum you up, but with a slant that would make someone want to read a book you have written.

You may find it easy. Or difficult like me. Let me know. Also, if you have one, how often do you change it?

Oh and back to the morning meetings in the this company of one. I find them invaluable. My life would go nowhere without them, I would just be a scatterbrainex mess. Which I still sort of am, but now I also get things done. So I highly recommend that practice. For anyone. Have a great day. I’ve got to go, to another meeting ironically enough. Hopefully I will find it as valuable an expense of my time, but I’m doubtful. 😊❣️⏰

Header photo: this company of one seated at a campfire with feet clad in double wool socks. Cania Gorge bike trip a few years ago. As I was setting up my swag earlier in the evening, a grey nomad (caravan traveller) walked past me. “You’ll freeze, it’s supposed to get well below zero tonight.”

I just smiled and said “I’ll be alright.” and I was, because I had my bike seat cover – a loose sheepskin that doubled as bedding when I was camping and saved my backside while riding. I had a wool blanket because I had found sleeping bags, even the best of them, just weren’t enough for me when sleeping on the ground. And I had found all of these things from in the past being cold, being wrong, and being an idiot. I also had a warm fire because I had learnt to carry firefighters and paper and a bit if kindling. The wood was supplied but they often didn’t supply enough of the goods I needed to light it in the places. And I am no scout. Firefighters make even the dumbest of us look like genius bush survivalists.

Sorry, a very long post – if you made it to here, thanks for reading, I sincerely appreciate you taking the time.