JULY: Being Intentional & Aware

I've been thinking a lot lately about goals and dreams and the path that I'm on. Who am I? Who do I want to be? Who does God want me to be? Do those two desire match?

Many times this year I have repeated the phrase, "the first step to holiness is self-awareness." And what is incredible about self-awareness is that it is a never ending cycle. We can always learn something new, something more about ourselves.

Lately, I haven't been so great about being self aware. Actually, on a large scale of my whole life I haven't been all that self aware. As I'm entering my 3rd of FOCUS, my 3rd year out of college, I'm curious about who I have become, and what my habits say about me. I want to be on an intentional path that seeks The Lord and his will for my life. 

So this month, I'm focusing on self awareness by just tracking myself. I just got a FitBit Flex and I'm super obsessed with it, but it's been fascinating to know now many steps I take on an average day. It also motivates me to track what I eat, how frequently I exercise, how much water I drink, and how well I sleep. It also has silent alarms, so I've bee able to set a reminder for prayer and Mass times so I don't accidentally miss it. In prayer, I've been intentional about meditating on themes that have come up, and taking note of them. I will be adding in a daily Examen to be intentional in noticing my struggles, moods, and successes. I've also been tracking my spending and saving, just to see where my habits are.

I'm not looking to make any changes (yet), and I know that these habits don't necessarily define who I am, but I think they will give me a good indicator of how healthy I am, and I how I feel during certain things. Hopefully, at the end of the month I will know where I am thriving and where I might need to make a change or two.

One of my favorite parts of the Examen Prayer is when you ask God for the light to see yourself as you truly are and as He sees you. So that's what I'm doing in this season, asking for the light to see myself as I truly am, in all aspects of my life.

Also, of you've noticed a lack of pictures, it's because my laptop broke (wah wah), so I'm working on replacing it/figuring out what I want to do for a computer.