Symbolica

The past few days I have been thinking deeply about what I am trying to do here. Grappling for the right words to express myself and trying to find my place in this enormous soup that is the blogosphere. As a result of typing in search terms such as ‘searching for meaning’ and key words like ‘values’ and ‘symbols’ I found myself at this site following Steve Pavlina’s guidlines for looking at my values and my current goals and seeing if they are compatible. The exercise was a bit laborious but ultimately helpful and I am left feeling more on track than I have in the past few weeks.
I discovered that one important goal for me right now is to become more focussed, aware, and conscious. I’ve always been a dreamer. I can drift from one thing to another for long periods of time, and as much as I might enjoy the sensation of the day dreamy state, I would love to achieve a lot more. This holds a great deal of value for me at the moment and I’m grateful for the process to be able to identify that.

Of course me still essentially being me I next found myself searching for a symbol to represent awareness and consciousness. In my favourite reference book Reverse Symbolism Dictionary for such research I found the the idea of an island being an appropriate symbol for the conscious mind being surrounded by water, symbolising the uncounscious mind. Oh I instantly felt that tingle you feel when something resonates well, as in my mind I was imagining a trianglular shape (outline of a meditating figure) This suited me perfectly!
So today I spent some time making this image of the island and I even spent 10 minutes practicing my old Vipassana meditation.
Does anyone have any other suggestions for symbols that they use to remind them of, or they use to illicit awareness, the concious mind, focus?

How many times can you read over the same post or work over the same artwork before you declare them finished and ready for the rest of the world?

I have quite a few half-finished or ‘nearly finished’ posts and I’m wondering if there is a symbol out there that I might use at the end of each post to help me let it go. Below are a few obvious ways to indicate the ending or to celebrate the completion of a project.

• A signature
• The End
• A gold Star
• A rubber stamp
• A tick
• A knife and fork lined up together on a plate
• A chocolate
• A cigarette
• A simple flourish

For me, whatever it is, it needs to feel like a reward to look forward to, an incentive to finishing the task at hand.

Do you reward yourself when you complete a task? If so how? Could you be creative with that reward? Could you symbolise the good feelings you experience when you achieve a goal? Could you use that symbol as an incentive to remind you of those satisfied feelings when you are having trouble finishing a task.

For me, when I complete a task I do feel satisfied and proud. I usually also find myself looking forward to starting the next project. Humour is an important part of my life, so when brainstorming this question for myself I kept coming up with fun things like my son’s stamps- so I think I’ll use them for now.