I did it! I did the first week of work on this course and I am proud of myself for doing it. I am proud to say I know myself better as a result of doing it and that is why I am happy with the achievement. I have moved closer to the completion of the art project of 'being myself' or living my life truly and completely. And I am glad. As I moved through the exercises I gained more insight into where I am right now and what I am using to slow myself down or restrict my movement entirely, and why I need to let go of that and that I DESERVE to let go of that. I am travelling for the next two weeks so will pause here instead of trying to overload myself and then getting upset at failing, and come late February I will start month one's training module. In the meantime I will keep this space in mind to post check in's, ask for support and share how I am feeling. I am loving this community and these exercises and what they are giving me, thank you! 😁

I bought the video game!! And I splurged for the cooler newer version that was £25 and I am as happy as I was anytime I entered a candy shop as a child because I now reown my favourite game of all time on my laptop here in 2026! It was the right choice and the right way to spend that money because now whenever I am feeling the need to move some soldiers around on a little map I know that I have Rome Total War 2 basically in my pocket! :D And now onto the week of learning how to be a Knight of the Round Table! :D 👑⚔️👑⚔️👑⚔️

No not of forever or anything drastic like that, but of this week long run that I committed myself to in order to help step into this container and guide myself back to regularity and consistency in myself. So going forward I will check in here when I want to and when I need to, which I hope is with regularity. What have I learned in this week? Slow and steady makes the mustard. Consistency is King. Set small and gentle goals and meet them. It's not about achieving it all now, or even having it all done yesterday, its about enjoying and fully embodying this present moment, and trusting that in each moment I will choose to better myself or to push myself or to accept myself as is needed in each case. The courage and the COMPASSION to be wholly and completely myself. Without fear of not being on time or enough. This allows me to get out of my own way and succeed. This allows me to make goals and hit them without fearing the size of them or the consequences of success. So, I look forward to continuing this journey of self discovery and interpretation, of self love, acceptance and success. The journey continues.

Today feels like a breath of fresh air in my heart and soul. It is a good and a big day full of work and effort and passion and HOPE. One of the things that has helped me this week is using a time table instead of a to do list. Adding times to the tasks and laying it out on a spreadsheet of half an hour rows (just like we used to at school) has actually helped me a lot with over planning and despair afterwards. I used to put loads of things in and "be okay" with stuff not getting done and rolling over to the next day. Trying a different method has shown me just how not okay I was with 'being okay' about that, especially on days where a lot of stuff rolled over. As the artists way says: "set small and gentle goals and meet them". I judge this to be good advice because for me Consistency beats Passion, Drive, Despair or Talent 10 time out of 10. So now I have a timetable just like I did at school: 8 columns by enough rows for each one to be half an hour of the day from 9am to 11pm. And my trick to using it has been to ALWAYS leave a half hour gap between each task. This both allows for overrun / for me to start tasks early, AND forces me to not pack too much in to the day. The frustration comes all up front when I am planning and have to leave stuff out rather than afterwards along with a message of 'failure' for not getting it all done. So I am enjoying my breath of fresh air and my new weekly scaffolding / time table.

I am in a conundrum and a dilemma with myself, or parts of myself. I am trying to be more of an artist and less of a drone, and last week you saw me do lots of art as an act of service to myself. This week I am struggling to find a suitable activity or game to play that I will enjoy, that will be good for my soul / inner child and will be healthy for me. The current expression of that is a yes/no to purchasing a video game on my laptop. If I were in the UK I would have lots more of my stuff to play with and enjoy and explore and make use of without having to spend money to do so (I already own video games on a PS2 I love and have Warhammer minis to paint etc). But here in Italy where I am for the next three weeks I do not. So do I buy the game for £16 or do I tell myself to wait. Fear is standing in the way and fear says "you do not have an income, you cannot afford to buy a video game you might not use more than a few times. you must be frugal until you have an income" And fear is decidedly a BUMMER, but I cant seem to look past it and find a way to spend the money, nor can I find anything else to do that is free and enjoyable. I am stuck. Any advice?