The months

The no-spending month is slowly but surely nearing its end. I wanted to write ‘it has been an amazing experience’ until I realised that my tense use was all wrong. It is still, and will remain, an amazing experience. This seemingly innocent decision, to stop spending money for one little month, has brought along a paradigm shift of such intensity and scope that it is still busy swallowing up my life as I knew it. Conscious spending, and in its wake conscious living, is true liberation. Instead of frustration, I found rich food for my soul. Instead of tension, release. Instead of doubt, deep certainty.

I have thought about it, and I think it’s the months that do it. Last year, by participating in the NaNoWriMo, an enormous paradigm shift was set in motion, impacting primarily the creative area of my life. The result was this blog, my ever-more serious flirtation with photography and the amazing discovery that one can actually make beautiful things with a sewing machine (of all things). To think that none of it existed even a year ago! No room of my own, no Japanese crafting books, no sewing machine, no toys, no bags, no blogs… What was it like to be me? I can’t even begin to imagine…

NaNoWriMo, No-spending, 30 Days of Living: all these projects last a month. A month is how long it takes for a paradigm shift to occur, to nestle, to seep through all the layers. And then, once the month is over… there comes the voyage of discovery through brand-new and breath-taking landscapes which have always been there… an old/new room in my house, an old/new window through which to look at the tree in my garden.

Last night, I found a book on the floor of my sewing room. Isabelle had apparently pulled it out of a bookshelf and left there. I don't remember buying it, and I have certainly never read it. It is called Soul Coaching: 28 Days to Discover the Real You.

28 days… Oops, there I go again!