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If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete. Unknown
Self-care is your fuel. Self-care equals endurance. This is a vital part of the foundation of an enduring empowerment commitment.
If youre an empath or especially sensitive to energies you need a higher level of self-care than the average person, as do all messengers, healers, teachers and caregivers in general. You sit shield yourself from harsh energies and have an active plan of self-care.
You already possess necessary key ingredients to a successful self-care commitment; a significant awareness and sense of purpose in life and a deep devotion to your spiritual health. Now what?
Know Your Needs and Supply Them
Caring for ourselves in all aspects of our life experience in order to lead a healthy and balanced life while being of service to others is vital to fulfilling our purpose. Learning to recognize and ask for what you need is often not a strong suit for women in our society or those in the helping professions.
Discovering your unmet needs is necessary in order to create a self-care commitment. This includes those areas that often come to mind with self-care; eating healthy, exercise and reducing stress. We will be visiting deeper realms and understanding of self-care in this lesson.
The Science of Balance
In the future we will associate neurosciences with spirituality as we currently do chakras and the meridian system.
In order to maintain a balanced mind, body, Soul connection we require times of stillness, which equates times of low external stimulation.
Our physical brains require rest. And our minds require rest. Our mind is not solely in our brain, it exists throughout our body and beyond.
We were designed for periods of work and rest. We were also created to be in and connect to the serenity of nature. Think of what the world was like just 100 years ago. In 1925 electricity had been installed in only half the homes in America.
The autonomic nervous system is responsible for regulating the body's unconscious functions. Its role in all areas of health is vast. There are three parts to the autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic, parasympathetic and enteric. We will briefly explore the first two and their vital role in our wellbeing of body and spirit.
The sympathetic nervous system is the fight or flight state. While it's vital to our survival, and necessary when running from danger, we know being in a prolonged state of it plays into chronic stress and an excess of hormones which when out of balance can be harmful to the body, including the brain. We were not created to live in the environments we now live in. Constant stimuli via electronic devices, overloaded schedules, traffic, a host of other activity and an altered global environment now invade our lives at unbalanced and unnatural levels.
The parasympathetic nervous system is where we rest and digest. It's vital for the health of every system of our bodies - and our minds and Soul. A parasympathetic state enables us to be in the moment. In that state, our body is able to find balance. It is a delicate balancing act.
Our minds do not differentiate between rush hour traffic with horns and sirens going off and a wild animal that may have triggered our sympathetic nervous system to be triggered in times past. This is one of the reasons it is vital to purposefully make a practice of relaxing the body. The body and mind must feel safe in order to move into a state of the parasympathetic where we not only rest and digest but cell regeneration occurs.
The balance of these systems affects us in all areas of our lives from a healthy immune system to be able to get in the zone to meditate and create.
As you begin to live in awareness treat yourself with the patience you would a small child. It is - once again a practice. It is a practice often overlooked because we do not understand the role our autonomic system plays in our well-being. Hopefully, with this, however brief, explanation of the importance, it will motivate to encourage a deeper dedication to the practice of self-care.
The Keys to Motivating Self-Care
Dedication, practice and patience will be the keys to get you to evolving your self-care regimen.
We could easily do an entire course on this one topic alone, but for now, being aware of it and the beginning of cultivating a practice enables us to create change. In a quiet uninterrupted space review your past week. Break down each days task, workload, home responsibilities, social and relationship experiences all of it. Journal the obvious areas where balance is required while jotting down notes of how you can make the necessary (and gradual) changes to support your commitment to self-care.
Whats Love Got To Do With It? Breaking the Chains
False beliefs we have, have had in the past, or currently have about ourselves and others attach to us they are chains. Literal energetic chains holding us hostage. As the experience of this course shatters them use each revelation to your advantage by empowering yourself knowing you are already in the process of creating the shifts and changes youve been searching for all these years.
Learning to Choose You
Relationship is a delicate balance and while you're working on improving your relationship with self by implementing increased levels of self-care you may find it necessary to sacrifice some of the time you spend socializing.
I also want to prepare you, as you make these changes in your life there may be people who will not be supportive or happy about it. You may encounter comments such as: You've changed! Unknowingly we often have trained people to overly depend on us. As we learn a new way of being and re-teach people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves and the boundaries we create, it can cause some uncomfortable shifts. Just remember you are going to be effortlessly retraining others how to treat you as you change your self-behaviors to a balanced and health space. Be prepared and stay committed. Ultimately we are at our best for others when we are first at our best for ourselves.
How We Treat Ourselves
How we treat ourselves is strongly influenced by our self-talk, automatic thoughts and self-beliefs, as previously covered in past lessons. Here's a power thought I would like for you to keep with you from this point forward
As you continue to purposefully and increasingly pay attention to your thoughts and self-talk ask yourself this question, Would I think about or speak to someone I respect and Love this way?
Imagine someone you Love dearly. Someone you would go the distance for in protecting in every way; emotionally, physically, spiritually. Now visualize yourself saying the self-talk you bombard yourself with daily toward them. Also imagine your reaction if someone else said these things to you, other than yourself. Do you see how vital your self-talk is? You are your parent, your protector. You are the programmer of your internal tape recorder, that constant stream of both conscious and subconscious thoughts running through your mind. Altering this is now within your power.
Begin to practice what we've discussed thus far and journal the experience. Begin to take control of your thoughts and self-talk by taking the time and effort to being aware of them.
An important question we rarely think about, or examine on a deeper level, is what we truly think and believe about ourselves. Lets look beyond the public persona, preconceived beliefs and masks we have used to protect ourselves and move (and sometimes drift) through life. Lets delve into our deep heart and reflect on what we truly feel and believe about ourselves. We can begin this process by asking some key questions:
As you can see, with just a few questions (and please come up with your own to add to the list) we can begin to see where it is our attention and intention is to be adjusted and focused to create enduring change in our lives.
Once again, this is not a linear process. It is often messy and unorganized. Become comfortable with the unknown as you begin to learn to focus more purposefully on what serves you. The dichotomy of the two combined is magical.
The Wounded Healer: Tending to the Wounds
The wound is the place where the light enters you. Rumi
It is important to bring awareness of the roles we have created and played throughout our lifes journey unto now. Tending to the wounds of the past and being aware of the ways in which we self-sacrifice is a necessary component as we make the choices of the areas we would like to continue to create change.
The term, wounded healer, was coined by psychologist Carl Jung who not only considered himself as wounded but theorized that most in the field have experienced their own wounds. Most writers write about topics in which they themselves have experienced challenges, wounds and healing including myself.
We want to be aware of these wounds. Take time to reflect on and tend to our own wounds, and possibly current ones. While these wounds once may have served us as a guide to our purpose, we can now choose to let go of the need for them to be active wounds. They will always be a part of our story, but we do not need them to be a part of our current identity. We can now, with gratitude, release the pain and suffering associated with these past experiences and choose to take the direction, lessons and wisdom they have provided and move forward.
Protect and Caress Your Soul
Know that as we continue to stir-up the subconscious and unconscious patterns, it can bring unpleasant emotions to the surface. Instead of viewing this as a negative see it as a blessing as it is part of the clearing. Do not allow this to deter you from the process. Instead, see it as a clear indicator that the efforts youre putting in are paying off!
It is making you aware of the areas requiring the removal of what is sabotaging and blocking you. Move through it and your life will flourish. Say out loud that you're willing to release old patterns to your conscious mind. Celebrate that your progress!
I hold the power to create new sacred patterns of self-care in my life knowing it is part of my Souls evolution of which I am deserving, knowing it will simultaneously nourish my own personal purpose and ultimately the collective as a whole.
Warriors Know When To Rest
It is important to understand we arent built to be on all the time. Just as Mother Nature has her ebbs and flows, so do we. As I often say in my teachings, a true warrior knows when to rest, grow, prepare, and renew in order to conquer.
Imagine if we demanded sunshine every day, all day. Life would wither. Its not your fault if you are not capable to be happy all the time. In actuality, a state of continuous boundless happiness would become exhausting. Contentment is the sweet spot, with moments (hopefully many) of happiness interwoven. The positivity movement challenges us to find the best in all situations, but without balance, this too is a set-up for feeling like a failure. You are a spirit in human form, not a robot. You have emotion, and in balance that is your beauty.
And the thing is, it is not only okay to have days when we are not on, but it is also necessary for optimal health in all areas of life. We need to find our balance allowing ourselves the opportunity to incorporate and process the universal truths, guidance and all we receive. The key is not perpetual boundless positivity, it is authenticity, persistence and resiliency.
If we seek to be complete, whole, we must go deeper. This requires the balance of knowing when to rest.
Empowerment Steps
To accelerate and fortify efforts during the course we incorporate Empowerment Steps that can be immediately implemented into action daily.
This week we add a new Empowerment Step as we continue reaffirming the previous week's intentions:
The following guided meditation and Soulwork exercise are vital aspects of the clearing and preparation for its continuation in next weeks lesson.
Soulwork:
Remember when you were a kid and doing what you loved: bubbles, coloring, play dough, bike riding, whatever your childhood vice time ceased to exist while engaging in these activities. That was mindfulness, awareness, being in the moment. Your homework this week is to choose one of these activities and participate in it. Have fun!
As stated previously, this course builds upon itself. Last week was the Soul Agreement Rewrite & Renewal. After this weeks focus on self-care, including the wounded healer work, review your Soul Agreement. Are there any areas you wish to add or revise with this new insight?
Associated Energy Exercise:
This week I invite you to do an energy scan. You do not require any prior experience to do this. Simply lay down in a quiet area where you will not be disturbed. Close your eyes and take several calming breaths. As you focus on your breath, begin to notice any areas in your physical and spiritual body where you feel tension. Feel free to gently stretch these areas allowing the stress to melt away.
As you become more in tune with your body begin to practice feeling intuitively what it is experiencing. Through your natural intuitive abilities, you have the power to connect with your body and spirit, bringing the two into greater alignment with one another.
This valuable tool allows us to communicate with and actually listen to our body. With practice, you will find you have the ability to do energy work on yourself by simply acknowledging your bodys needs as a maintenance modality in your self-care regimen.
Journaling of Progress:
Evaluate your current level of self-care to encourage your future progress by writing the following statements in your journal, todays date, and your current rating. Set a reminder in your calendar to check-in with yourself in a month to note your progress.
On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the highest) rate your current level of self-care in the following areas:
I participate in activities simply for the fun and joy they bring me.
I participate in activities with friends, family, and/or community on a regular basis for support and connection.
I take time daily to focus on things for which I am grateful.
I take the time and make a conscious effort to nurture my connection with my inner self.
I nourish my body with healthy quality foods and movement.
I have the ability to say no to others when I need to.
I have the ability to ask for assistance when I need it.
I take time to rest my mind, body and Soul on a daily basis if even for only 20-30 minutes.
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