comfort is a nice place, but nothing ever grows there

I know it’s only the beginning of our time exploring expressions and depths of Urutengangana (eldest of te ira atua/the gods, atua of light), but I love it so much already. Being slightly more aware of the concepts we covered last week, around ‘uru,’ how we enter in and out of spaces, understandings, phases etc. has me behaving slightly more deliberate about how I do that. How I enter into physical spaces, what my intent is, how I impact the space..

how I enter in and out of different levels of understanding, of myself and of the world around me.

Celebrating the transitions between phases and creating ceremonies to acknowledge these shifts has been a new thing I’ve started to experiment with. Super lowkey and a space for me to check in with the tūps, recalibrate, realign myself to fulfil the vision. Like I mention above, it’s only early days but I’m loving the process and the effect so far.

Other interpretations we can draw on from Urutengangana are how ‘uru’ describes the ‘west’ in terms of direction. So we could consider the metaphor of ‘ka tō te rā ki te uru,’ the sun sets in the west — evidentially, when this happens, the world enters into a phase of rest, of darkness.. interesting, since ‘ngangana’ means ‘to glow’ and Urutengangana is referred to as the atua of light.. the metaphor could be to describe how our level of understanding or comprehension will always end, die, become redundant, ‘set in the west’ allowing for something new to take it’s place, for new māramatanga ‘enlightenment’ to occur.. maybe.. what are your thoughts so far?

Something to consider ha anyway, heoi, back to the post..

The book I’m currently listening to, The 5am Club by Robin Sharma, dropped this bomb yesterday,

‘procrastination is a form of self-hatred.’

Let that one simmer for a bit. It took me a while… and yes, you read that correctly, “procrastination is a form of self-hatred.”

I make no secret of the fact I procrastinate. I set a five month deadline to write my first book because I knew if I gave myself more time, I’d still end up with five months to work on it anyway! Ha even then, during the five months, I found ways to distract myself, to procrastinate.. with five days to go before the launch, I still hadn’t sent the final document to the printers.. I had come so far in the process and just before the end, those trusty self-doubt, self-sabotage voices became more and more vocal, more and more difficult to silence.

Procrastination was my safe place,

and I had glamourised getting distracted and just accepted I didn’t have the discipline to not procrastinate.. I’ve never heard or seen procrastination described as a form of self-hatred, and it’s really impacted on me. It stung at first. I got defensive, I reasoned why it’s not true or not for me anyway haha rolls eyes… but listening to it phrased this way made me uncomfortable, so I knew something about it triggered me. the more I sat with it, the more it started to resonate…

Why would you delay going all in on yourself, on your dreams if you truly loved yourself? Why would you put off realising your potential, unlocking the brilliance within you, polishing up on your gifts and serving others in the process — if you had your self-love on lock?

Why would you choose a life where you never discover what you’re capable of, because you ‘couldn’t be bothered’ or distracted yourself at every turn?

I still don’t know how I feel about the phrase, but it’s woken me up to how much I procrastinate and how much I’ve accepted average and mediocrity as ok. And if I truly believe I’m whakapapa in action, that I’m embodying everyone who’s come before me and those yet to come — they deserve better. I deserve better.

This does NOT mean filling my day with mahi and only being focused on output.. I also believe there’s a difference between rest/recovery and procrastinating.. heck, I probably procrastinate (and make poor decisions, generally ha) because I’m not rested….

There are other factors at play too, like the capitalist system that our lives have been designed to fit.. ahhhh we’re only just scratching the surface… only just entering into new levels of this wānanga.. new levels of discomfort haha!

What have you become comfortable with in your life? It’s a nice place of course, but nothing ever grows there…

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.