Spring is all about rebirth and new beginnings so what better to time to set the intention of loving yourself more?
I truly believe that by loving ourselves more and bringing that state of self love and self acceptance into our everyday lives we can change the world around us into a more loving and accepting place. Wouldn't that be nice?
So here's your daily challenges:
Start a gratitude journal - write down five things you are grateful for in your life. Better yet fill a whole page. Look for things to be grateful for each day.
Look in the mirror and say " I love you." It might feel weird at first. Keep practising.
Spend five minutes meditating - do more if you can, if not five minutes is great
Take a walk on the beach.
Buy some flowers or pick some from your garden. Surround yourself with beauty
Give yourself a facial. Sure you could book into your favorite beauty salon and get one done but why not spend some time showing yourself some love instead?
Have a soak in the bath. Add bubbles and light candles.
Read a book for 30 minutes
Clean out your closet. Donate any clothes that you haven't worn for the past year to The Salvation Army
Have an early night. The truth is most of us don't get enough sleep so do yourself a favor and head to bed early.
Create a delicious salad for lunch. Use as many different colored vegetables as possible. Here's my favorite salad dressing at the moment: 1 avocado, 1 piece of turmeric (fresh) about the size of your thumb, 4 cloves of garlic ( i love garlic so you might want to reduce that), Juice of one lemon, 1 piece of ginger (fresh about the size of your thumb), a good grind of black pepper and a pinch of Himalayan salt and enough olive oil to make it liquid. Add everything to blender and give it a good whizz. Store in the fridge in an airtight container. Lasts about a week.
Create a vision board of Self Love. What does it mean to you? Post it somewhere you will see it daily as a reminder.
Take a yoga class. Yoga is great for helping us be present to ourselves and what our bodies are trying to tell us.
Create an altar to self love - add crystals, images of the Goddess, affirmations, anything that reminds you to care for you.
Buy yourself a present.
Take yourself out to lunch.
Nurture your inner child. What would your inner child like to do today? Go do that.
Write a letter to your uterus. I did this after reading this amazing piece by Sue Dumais.
Get a natural bristle brush and do dry skin brushing. Honestly, your body will feel amazing after this.
Make a smoothie. I am drinking my Sunshine Smoothie while I write this: 1 banana, I piece of turmeric ( size of thumb) 1 piece of ginger ( size of thumb) 1 tablespoon coconut oil, 1 Ugli fruit, 1/4 pineapple and 250ml water. Blend and drink. This makes two large glasses. I drink them both for breakfast YUM!
A bowl of Ugli's from our trees
Spend time in nature
Buy some new underwear. We all have a few pairs of not so flash knickers and now is the time to ditch them!
Eat a luscious piece of fruit.
Wear something colorful.
Sleep in.
Write down 5 things you love about yourself. Add it to your vision board or altar.
Moisturize your whole body.
Go barefoot for a few minutes to connect with Mother Earths energy.
I seem to be fascinated with time today I just wrote this article for The Wellness Directory and now I am working on this chapter of my upcoming book: Every Goddesses guide to Sex, Love and Life.
This is just a wee snippet. If you love it sign up for my newsletter for all the updates on when the book will be available.
The Curse of Busy
We all do it. We use busy as an excuse for getting out of
things or as a catch cry for everything; “I’m so busy” “I’d love to but I’m
just really busy right now.”We think it
makes us seem important , all this busy-ness means we have so much to do, so
much to juggle and so we rush through our days, being busy, often though, the
very act of being busy is stopping us from actually being productive or
connected or from just being. We have got so caught up in the rush and thrill
of being busy that we have forgotten how to just be.
After all we are human beings not human doings, though if
you were to check us out on any given day you would find that we spend far more
time doing than being. Our lives rush past us in a blur of busy-ness, we seem
impatient for the next step the next achievement and forget that this moment
right here, is our life.
This is never more apparent than when we are raising our
children; we cannot wait for them to reach the next milestone; sleeping through
the night, rolling over, crawling, walking, talking and the days slip by
without us registering the enormity of us having birth to this human being. We
need to stop, slow down, take a breath and drink it all in.
This became fully apparent to me when I had my youngest son;
that this would be the last time that I would be pregnant, the last time that I
would breastfeed, the last time that I would be there for so many first times.
I still didn’t get it right all the time, I don’t think anybody ever does and
by trying to make it perfect we suck all the joy out of it anyway.
For all you mums out there take it easy on yourself, it
doesn’t matter if the laundry doesn’t get folded, it does matter if you sit and
listen to your child explain what is going on for them whether they are 2 or 15
or 25 no, it never stops and yes, listening is always that important).
We forget in the midst of all the busy work; the laundry
folding, dish washing and meal cooking that life is happening and life is what
we are supposed to be paying attention to. Your life, your kids’ lives, your
life with your partner (husband, lover whatever you want to call him –or her).
Step out of the kitchen, put down the phone, step away from the computer and
find something, anything that connects you to you. We all need to spend more time
connecting with our centre, finding out what makes us tick and letting go of
our baggage.
One of the ways that we stop ourselves healing from our past
is the eternal quest of busy; reading one more email, writing one more post on Facebook,
running endless errands, anything that will stop us from being still and
looking inside ourselves and asking “ What do I need to heal? What do I need to
let go of?” This is the real work of living, developing and growing into the
finest, highest, best version of yourself, peeling off all the masks that we
wear and looking ourselves in the eye and loving who we see staring back at us.
And we don’t get to do that if we are constantly busy, if we are running from
one job to the next and the only stillness in our day is when we plonk
ourselves in front of the television for some mindless entertainment.
A true goddess has asked herself the big questions: Who am
I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? And she likes the answers that she has
come up with: I am a luminous being of Light and Love. I am here to share my
Light and Love with the world. My purpose is to shine and help others to find
their way.
Like this? Want to find out when the book is coming out? Fill out the form!
Comfort food is a term used to describe anything that we reach for in times
of stress or anxiety. We eat it because it reminds us of when were kids, often its
food that our mother made for us; macaroni and cheese, ice cream sundaes,
cakes, biscuits, anything that is a little bit naughty but feels sooo good! We
know we shouldn't eat it but we crave the comfort that the food brings.
I have a friend who is an alcoholic and he had been sober for the past
two years, right up until he had a very stressful experience which drove him
straight to the liquor store to grab a bottle. Now you might think that his
situation is entirely different from your own.
The truth is a bit different though. Often we are triggered by an emotional
situation right before we develop an overwhelming urge to eat a cupcake or buy
a chocolate bar - we just don't associate the emotional situation with the
urge. What’s your drug of choice?
You see we are all addicted to something; coffee, chocolate, alcohol, cake.
In fact researchers are now saying that sugar is just as addictive, if not more
so , than cocaine. Yes, you read that right sugar
is more addictive than cocaine.
And just like any addict we reach for our drug
of choice whenever our emotional buttons get pushed. We might not do it
straight away but sometime over the next couple of hours our addiction will
kick in and we will feel compelled to satisfy our craving.. This is why we
don’t connect it to the argument we had with our boss or the fight we had with
our spouse or the way that we yelled at the kids.
I have another friend who is gluten intolerant, whenever she eats it she
feels terrible; her body aches, she starts yawning and wanting to sleep and her
nose runs so you think she would avoid it like the plague… but she doesn’t.
Sure she can go days or even weeks without eating any, she will only buy gluten
free options when she is doing the shopping and everything is fine. Then
something will push her buttons and she will give in to temptation and have a
cupcake or other non gluten free treat and then she will feel like crap and
berate herself for her lack of willpower. The truth is it has nothing to do
with willpower and everything to do with how she was feeling on an emotional
level.
When any of us give in to our craving for something that we know we
shouldn’t be eating or drinking, what we are trying to achieve is to quiet down
the emotional storm that is raging inside us. It might be raging away deep,
deep down, so deep that we are not even consciously aware of it, but it will be
there. Self-sabotage is misguided self-love
I listened to a webinar recently and
the person being interviewed made the statement that self-sabotage is misguided
self-love. We are trying to keep ourselves safe and the means we do that (like
eating gluten when you know it is not good for you, ordrinking alcohol when you are an alcoholic)
might seem crazy to someone on the outside but at the time they make perfect
sense to us,
The trouble is when we sedate our emotions we are numbing out part of
ourselves and life starts to become a bland, beige kind of world. Our emotions
are signposts to what is going on deep inside us and by tuning them out we miss
the messages and the lessons that they have for us. How do we know if we are sedating an
emotion? How can we avoid it?
(1)Overwhelming cravings: You may have been
able to go weeks or even months without reaching for a piece of cake and
suddenly all you can think of is cake ( or whatever your drug of choice is).
You might argue with yourself or endeavor to side-track yourself from
indulging but that nagging craving just won’t leave you alone
(2)Scroll backwards: Do a mental run
through of your day and see if you can pinpoint the moment that your craving
started and then scroll back further to what happened just before that. Chances
are that you had an argument or an encounter with someone that pushed some
button and flooded you with emotions. Shortly after that came the craving
(3)See the pattern: While we are unaware
of the pattern we can’t take any steps to avoid it and complain about our lack
of will power or our weakness. Everything shifts once you see the connection
between the emotions and the craving. We can’t change anything until we are
aware of what needs to be changed.
(4)Choose differently: This is the hardest
part. Acknowledging the pattern is the first real step in changing the pattern
and the next step into wholeness is to make a different choice. Often the
easiest way to do this is with the help and guidance of an experienced
therapist as confronting deeply buried emotions and memories is not an easy
task which is why we opt for the easy solution – like eating cake, right up
until that doesn’t work for our highest interests any more.
This is one of the beauties of EFT ( tapping) as
you don’t have to relive old memories in order to clear and release them.
So next time you are hit by an overwhelming urge
to indulge in your drug of choice ask yourself: “What emotion am I trying to
put to sleep?” The answer might surprise you.
We were taught as children that it was important to share and to think of other peoples feelings. We got the message early on that we needed to think about the impact of what we were doing on other people.
We learned that we needed to play nice.
We learned to tie our shoes, recite the alphabet, say "please"and "thank you".
What we didn't learn was how to care for ourselves. Sure we learned that we needed to eat our greens, brush our teeth and wash regularly.
But we didn't learn how to nurture ourselves. We didn't learn the importance of our feelings. In fact we may have been told to stop crying because we weren't really hurt when actually, we were really hurt. Maybe we weren't bleeding but our pride had been hurt or we felt foolish or embarrassed or we just needed a good cry.
So we did learn how to shut our feelings down or maybe we learned that we need to sedate those feelings with food ( or when we are older with drugs, sex, alcohol or mindless television).
What if we started nurturing ourselves? What would it look like to put ourselves first? Our wants and need?
What if we started saying "No"when we didn't want to do something instead of saying "Yes"and then trying to think up ways of getting out of it?
What if we valued our time so we stopped wasting it on mindless activities; constantly updating facebook, scrolling through our emails, posting endless pics on Instagram of food we are about to eat?
Even little things that we do everyday that don't seem to mean much can have a huge impact on honoring and valuing yourself. Danielle LaPorte wrote this beautiful piece on making the most of your body and one tip hit me: I stocked up on face cloths and use a clean face cloth every night. Fresh and luxy… and better for your skin. Now that is not a big deal, using a fresh face cloth every night
( in her case) but I decided that I would make that one small change and see if it made a difference.
It did.
I felt better about myself from the time I got up in the morning until I went to bed at night. I made more of an effort in other areas of my life. I stuck to commitments I made to myself. All from changing one small habit.
10 Tips to Honor Yourself More
(1) Clean out your underwear drawer
Its a simple thing but it has a huge impact. Well it does for us girls anyway. Throw out all your ratty old underwear - we all have them. They might have been your favorites once but now they are just old and a bit grotty so bin them. then get yourself some lovely new knickers and bras.
When it comes to bras please, please, please get fitted for one. Too many woman are wearing the wrong size bra so if you haven't been fitted for a while you are probably one of them. Nothing makes a woman feel hotter or sexier than matching bra and panties.
(2) Dress for success
Everyday, no matter how you are feeling or what you are doing dress up. Now I work at home and it would be really easy to just lounge about in my pj's all day but everyday I get up and dress like I am off somewhere important. No track pants for this girl. It makes me feel special and important ( and my husband loves it - so that's a bonus!)
Knowing that you look good makes you feel good too and takes no more effort than slipping into trackpants and a sloppy jumper so choose something pretty instead.
(3)Set an intention
Decide that you are worth more; more time, more effort, more love, just more. Set an intention to start honoring yourself more. Write it down. Put it somewhere that you will read it daily and make sure to read it daily.
"Today I will honor myself by exercising.
"Today I will honor myself by making healthy food choices.
"Today I will honor myself by taking time out to meditate."
(4) Keep your commitments to yourself
Often we will decide that our diet starts tomorrow or we will exercise for 30 minutes each day or we will give up smoking or start going to the gym but instead we choose the opposite. We decide that it's too cold to exercise today or we haven't got time to go to the gym but we have time to waste on Facebook or playing a game on Xbox.
The reason is because we don't values our relationship with ourselves. If we made a commitment to our best friend to meet up for coffee we would but it's just too easy to cut ourselves some slack and so we do.Over and over and over again.
Now I want you to value your commitments to yourself.
(5) Create a Sacred Space
Bringing the element of scared space into your home helps you to feel balanced and restored when you come home. You can either create an altar somewhere in your home or make your bedroom a sacred sanctuary ( or both). I have an altar in my walk in wardrobe so that when I am getting ready for my day I can pause and reflect on the things that are important to me.
An altar is just a space that you place a collection of items. You may want crystals, candles, pictures of deities or anything that represents the sacred to you. Each day take a couple of minutes to state your intention at your altar, light a candle and ask your higher power for blessings throughout your day. Incense is also nice as when you return at the end of the day the lingering scent reminds you of your commitment to honoring yourself.
(6) Surround yourself with beauty
Take time to acknowledge the everyday beauty around you; sounds of the birds singing, flowers that are growing, clouds in the sky, whatever form of beauty that you see everyday.
I love to have fresh flowers in my home and it always lifts my spirits to notice them throughout my day. Flowering plants in the home just seem to bring the place to life. I am carefully cultivating my phalenopsis orchids at present and cannot wait until the bids burst forth in bloom. Seeing those buds make my heart sing every day.
Beauty lifts our souls and feeds our spirit so make your home as beautiful as possible. Eliminate or reduce clutter and get rid of any thing that is broken and hasn't been repaired. If it has been languishing waiting for repair for longer than three months chances are pretty high that you don't actually need or want it - throw it out! (7) Love your body Keep it well hydrated. Your body is 50 -60% water and it needs lots of it to function well. Water flushes toxins from the body, helps your brain to function optimally and keeps all your cells juicy and plump.
Eat the most nourishing, healthful food you can find. Include lots of fruits and vegetables in the whole rainbow of colors! What you eat today literally becomes the body you have tomorrow.
Moisturise your body from the inside out be eating good quality fats such as organic butter, coconut oil, avocados, salmon,chia seeds and hemp seeds. All of these contain the right kind of fats for your body.
(8) Speak kindly to yourself and about yourself
Words have immense power. Don't believe me? Say out loud "I have cancer". I bet you anything you like you don't want to say it because you don't want to put that energy out into the world. Your thoughts about yourself carry that same energy, whether you say them out loud or not.
If you are having a bad day be extra careful with the things that you are telling yourself as you can lead yourself into a downward spiral of negativity very quickly.
Instead keep repeating over and over "I am doing the best that I can."and watch how your energy shifts. Imagine that you are talking to the younger you and let her know that you are looking out for her.
Pat yourself on the back regularly and celebrate all the steps that you take that are moving you in the direction that you want to go in.
(9) Take time to be still and quiet
Spending time quieting your mind at the beginning or end of a busy day helps your body to relax and unwind. If you do it first thing in the morning it allows you to ease into the day with a greater sense of calm. If you do it at the end of the day it helps you let go of all that has happened throughout the day and unwind ready for sleep.
We tend to surround ourselves with noise and distraction but the reality is we need quiet and solitude to help us reconnect to ourselves, to hear what our internal dialog is saying. Meditation doesn't need to be long or complicated. In fact five minutes of meditation; following your breath in and out will quiet the mind enough for you to receive some benefit.
A few restorative yoga poses at the end of the day helps kick the parasympathetic nervous system into gear so we relax and let go.
(10) Keep a journal
Making it a daily habit to write down five things you are grateful for, three things you value about yourself and anything that you are proud of yourself for. The simple act of writing things down helps reinforce them into our memories and also makes us pause and think about the quality of our day.
There you have it 10 reasons to start honoring yourself and practising more self care. Which one are you going to try first?
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