Even if all the teachers you had were supportive of your unique take on the world.
Even if the religion you followed allowed you to fully express all aspects of yourself.
Even if the society you live in was the most inclusive and liberal.
You can see where I'm going with this, right?
You see when we were born we were at our most open, trusting and vulnerable and we had no filters. that means we took everything as gospel, as the pure truth because we had nothing else to judge it by.
If someone told us we were ugly we believed them. If someone told us that we were useless and not worth the time spent talking to us, we took that in too.
The truth is they didn't even have to say a word - we soaked everything up like a sponge; the good, the bad and the downright ugly. All was taken in and laid down in our subconscious mind and shaped how we viewed life from then on.
That voice you have in your head telling you that you are never going to amount to anything, that you will never find love? That comes from way back then.
And we can't blame those who instilled those messages into us. They were just teaching us what they learned when they were young. No parent sets out to damage their child ( generally speaking. Yes, their are some damaged individuals who inflict child abuse but in broad sweeping terms most parents want the best for their kids).
Buried deep inside of us is a wounded child. A child that needs our love, forgiveness and compassion as if they were standing in front of you right now with tears streaming down their face and looking to you to make it all okay.
How do we go about making it okay? How do we kiss the boo boos away and tend to those past hurts?
Here's a few simple steps you can take:
(1) Acknowledge the hurts. We can't heal what we don't acknowledge and sometimes the healing lies in the acknowledgement.
(2) Do a visualization and imagine sitting down with your inner child and asking them what they need for healing. This can be a powerful process for healing on all levels. Imagine taking the younger you onto your lap and giving them a big hug and listening to all they have to tell you.
(3) Write your younger self a letter telling yourself all the messages that you had longed to hear. how valuable you are as a person, how much you are loved and treasured.
(4) Place photos of you when you were younger around your work space so you can remember to connect with that younger aspect of yourself. Let it be a reminder to have fun and play.
(5) Most of all be gentle with yourself and know that whatever your childhood was like you survived and you are here now and that in itself is a precious gift.
What is your favorite way to nurture your inner child?
Why?
Because who you are today is different to who you were yesterday.. or last week or last month... or five years ago.
Change is the only constant.
Our beliefs change. we learn new things and things that we believed years ago, we now realize don't hold true for us any more.
Our relationships change. People who were our best friends for a long time we no longer see any more because we grew apart. Or the person that we married and thought was the love of our life we now realize was just a temporary stop on our journey through love.
Our body changes. We gain weight or we lose weight. Our body ages and we now have trouble with our hearing or our eye sight or our body just feels different than it used to.
And so we have to fall in love with our self... over and over again. Just like we do with our significant other.
I discovered this for myself recently. I am currently losing weight without even trying. Let me back up for a minute and say that I was always skinny growing up. My mother was always trying to convince me to eat and I was a picky, picky eater ( and as all mother's do she cursed me by saying " I hope you have a child as fussy as you when you grow up". Thanks Mum, I did, with bells on!). I was alsop teased unmercifully by adults and children alike.
I was told not to stand side on or I might disappear altogether, that I was lucky my legs didn't snap and run up my arse ( who says that to someone?), that I should be careful in the wind in case I got blown away. That is just the adults. This kids just called me "stork legs"
I stayed skinny until I turned thirty although I was always terrified of becoming fat and obsessed over my weight.
Then came the perfect storm: I got pregnant to the man I was divorcing, I gave birth, got a tubal ligation, turned thirty and met the man of my dreams ... and his four girls. Not only did my hair start falling out in handfuls - so much that my hairdresser asked what to do about my bald patches but the weight ( which had all dropped off dramatically after the birth) all started piling on... and on ... and on.
I took a long time adjusting the image I had of myself to the image that was now in front of me. In my mind I was still slim. I tried eating differently. I tried exercising nothing changed.
It took me a long time to get comfortable and love my new body.
Over the past few years I have fallen deeply in love with my curvy body. I called myself voluptuous. I claimed myself as a Sex Goddess. I wrote a book and I shifted my mindset about what my body meant to me.
Yes, I changed my eating habits but not drastically. I am following the Paleo lifestyle ( I loathe to call it a diet becasue it doesn't feel like a diet at all) but not stringently. I have increased the amount of physical activity I'm doing because I have more energy although I wouldn't call it exercising ( that's in the plan though!)
But here's the thing my body is shedding the excess pounds which is great but I am also adjusting to the new slimmer me again. My clothes are getting lose and baggy. I have already gone down one size and these are now loose on me too.
As the pounds are dropping off I am learning to love myself in a new way. The stretch marks are becoming deeper and more noticeable now they are not stretched over fat, my breasts are not as plump and round as they once were. Not only is my body losing weight but,of course, I am older than I was when I was last slim so everything is different.
Oh and menopause is definitely on the horizon. Fun times.
The biggest thing I am learning ( relearning, reminding myself, noticing) is that my body really is only a very small part of who I am and the Me that I have to love is the one who lies inside all of that. So I am loving myself a little more every day.
So here are my five tips to loving yourself through change:
(1) Change is inevitable.
Accept that change is going to happen. If you keep struggling to keep things the same you are going to miss out on all the fun. (2) Get comfortable with the new "normal"
Once you accept that change is happening embrace it. All change feels uncomfortable at first but struggling with it, resisting it will only make the transition last longer and feel miserable in the process. (3) Be gentle with yourself.
Some days everything will feel fine and others you will struggle with. It is all okay. Beating yourself up for having a bad day won't help. Taking a warm bath and going to bed early might be just the thing you need. Gentle, gentle. (4) Look at yourself in the mirror every morning and say "I love you"
Keep reminding yourself how much you love you. Even on the days you feel like crap. Especially on the days you feel like crap. Do something you love. Treat yourself like your own best friend. (5) Celebrate!
Take the time to acknowledge how far you have come . Every small step in the direction you want to go is a huge victory so take the time to celebrate. And keep going!
I love Spring. I love the newness of everything. I love the brisk mornings. I love seeing the buds getting bigger and bigger everyday, about to burst forth into a blaze of flowers.
Spring in all it's glory~
A funny thing seems to happen to me the closer that Spring gets.
I start cleaning.
Now if you have been reading my blog for a while or if you have read my book you will know that I am not a domestic Goddess. No, I don't like housework and avoid it for as long as I possibly can while not endangering anyone with health issues. I like my sanitary but not necessarily spotless. It always looks lived in, homely, but no, you can't eat off the floor ( and seriously, why would you want to?)
With all the cleaning, re-arranging, water -blasting (I love to water blast!) I have also taken to cooking up a storm in the kitchen. I am beginning to wonder if I am possessed.
What I think is actually happening is my creative juices are in full flow. I want to create a beautiful home space that feels welcoming and inviting. I want to cook nourishing foods that satisfy the eye and the taste buds. I want to fully express myself as the luscious, self loving Goddess that I am.
I am moving more fully into the fullest expression of myself every day. And writing is the key to my evolution. writing my blogs, writing my morning pages and creating content for my online programs ( hang in, there they are coming very soon).
I now write for the Huffington Post ( you can find my first two articles: one on making love last and the other on mothering sons, by clicking the highlighted links) and seeing so many people reading and sharing my words is a great feeling.
So there has been a lot of creating going on. Mine and Mother Nature's. And what have I cooked up for you? Ah well, it must be time for a new Self Love Immersion.
On September 1 I will be launching another FREE self love program ( you can sign up for the emails here ) . Each day, for the month of September, you will receive an email with prompt for ways to love yourself more. In this challenge I will also be giving you a daily writing challenge to help you on your journey of self discovery. Who know it may just get your creative juices flowing too.
The way I see it we have only one choice - we have to love ourselves
All of our selves.
The flawed, quirky parts of us.
The wounded parts of us.
The parts of us that were wounded when we were little. ( Yes, I mean our Inner Child)
The parts of us that didn't quite fit in when were teenagers. (More Inner Teenager than Inner child)
The parts of us that were damaged from the relationship break ups.
The parts of us that don't have a f@+%ing clue what we are doing with our lives even though we are now (fill in the blank) age and should have our shit together.
The parts of us that are changeable and fluid and bend which ever way the wind is blowing, or when some new inspiration hits. "I'm going to become a writer.... no, I'm going to move to the South Island, no, I'm going to dye my hair green, no wait....I'm going to"
The parts of us that are so deep and dark and scary that we hide them... even from ourselves.
The parts of us that just want to crawl under the covers and come out when the world is nicer.
We need to love ourselves back to wholeness, back to happy, back to abundance, back to our natural loving, open armed, open hearted selves.
The eternal question is how?
How do we love all of that messy, dark , wounded parts of us?
By admitting that it is there.
By taking ownership of it.
"Yes, I am flawed. Yes, I do get angry and fly off the handle far too easily. Yes, I have been hurt. Yes. Yes.Yes. This is me in all my flawed beauty"
By acknowledging, to yourself, all that you have been through and learning the lessons from them.
By accepting that this is who you are - without judging or feeling sorry for yourself .
Because if we can accept and love our friends when they are being jerks then surely we can love ourselves too.
If we can love our partner/husband/wife/lover when they just made a dick of themselves, not to mention all their irritating little habits then surely we can love ourselves too.
If we can love our children when they poop on us or vomit on us or (when they are older) when they make silly mistakes then surely we can love ourselves too.
We all make mistakes, we all screw up the trick is to love ourselves through all of it. We do it for everyone else maybe it's time we did it for ourselves too.
There is one door in my house that I affectionately call the "Door of Awesomeness" and that is the fridge door. Everything goes on there. Fridge magnets that I love, photos of my kids and grandkids before I put them in frames or the photo album, but mostly it is covered in quotes that I love.
I am a wordy person and I have been collecting quotes for as long as I can remember.
I collect them in note books and scraps of paper. I have folders full of the ones I have printed out and I always have some on the fridge. Always.
That is until a few weeks ago when I was doing a big de-clutter, spring clean ( even tho where I am we are moving into Autumn!). In a flurry of domesticity and a desire for a more zen like calm in the house, I stripped the fridge door bare... and left it like that. For about a week.
There was the fridge door in all its stark, stainless steel glory. All shiny and gleaming. But it didn't feel right. Worse, it didn't feel, like me anymore.
The thing is all those quotes and pictures are things I read whenever I open the fridge or stroll through the kitchen. sometimes while I am sitting over at my office desk I will glance into the kitchen and read something off the fridge to inspire me or ground me.
When my youngest son moved overseas I printed out an A4 sized pic of him and placed it on the fridge because I missed him. Soon my husband ( who is notorious for coming up with nicknames) started refering to him as FridgeBoy: "Have you heard from FridgeBoy recently?"
Nothing stays the same in life, or on my fridge and so that pic has come down (my son is now living in the UK), new grandchildren have been born ( their pics went on the fridge and have now come down), new inspiration comes, new poems are found and they all spend time on the fridge
I guess my fridge is a bit like a mini vision board or collection site for all my current interests. My shower is another place for me to gather my poems and quotes. This is where I post quotes to inspire me for the morning or prayers that I am working with. In fact, if I really break it down my whole home is full of altars and vision boards, places to savour the word in all its many forms - quotes, poems, intentions and prayers.
What prayers keep you going? Is there a quote that you carry with you or have somewhere in your home? Is your fridge a door of awesomeness that you renew as the mood takes you? If it is I would love you to share it on Instagram with the hashtag #doorofawesomeness so I can check it out.
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Yeah me too. Not only do I have high expectations of others, I have high expectations of my self.
I expect my friends to be loyal, to respect my time (like I respect theirs) and not be late when we make arrangements. I expect them to talk to me and not gaze at their cell phones every five minutes. I expect them to be there for me like I am for them. It doesn't seem like a lot to ask... but sometimes it is.
At this time of year we also have high expectations for family gatherings. We all want the picture perfect family gathering; happy families, gorgeous food, lots of presents - we see it on every sit com and television show . Sure there might be a little family upset but nothing that cannot be resolved in a half hour time slot or a one hour movie. ( Unless it is August Osage County - love that movie. So much more realistic)
The reality is much more like slow burning resentments, crappy presents and people who barely tolerate each other ( or is that just my family???? (Family of origin not my kids who are AWESOME))
But here's the thing you have permission to do things your own way, to not go to family functions unless you actually want to.
In 2012 I wanted to have all my family together just in case the world ended because my youngest would be heading off overseas the following year and it would be the last opportunity for all of us to gather in one place ( we have seven kids between us so it's not easy to organize). But here's the thing, one by one, for lots of different reasons, the kids canceled. Sure, I was disappointed but if they didn't wantto be here I wasn't about to force them or manipulate them or guilt them into coming.
Recently my nine year old granddaughter came to stay for two and a half weeks. I have 11 grandchildren altogether and they all live far away so I get to be the grandma that drops in for flying visits or sends parcels in the mail. Not the Grandma who bakes. Not the Grandma who has the kids for sleepovers. Not the Grandma who goes to school plays.
And to be honest I don't want to be that Grandma. I like swooping in and swooping out. I like hunting for just the right gift ( okay this is getting harder as they get older and I refuse to just give money!). And most of all I like time to myself. Lots of time to myself. Lots and lots.
So I have my granddaughter staying and the weather is crap and I have a long list of "Shoulds" going on in my head..... a long long list.
So I take a deep breath and let it go and with it all my expectations of how this "should" be and how I "should" be. Because the reality is this is me and I have permission to be my most awesome self.
I have permission to be the kind of Grandma that I am ..... rather than squash myself into to some Grandma shaped mold.
I have permission to not want to do crafts...... because I suck at them.
I have permission to put movies on for her to watch so I can catch up on my writing... because I'm a write and I need to get that shit down on paper ( well, computer screen)
I have permission to be me.
My question you is where are you not giving yourself permission to be you?
Where are you compromising to the point that you don't feel like yourself any more?
Where have you bent so far that you feel like you are going to break?
The Ultimate gift you can give yourself this Christmas is permission to be authentically yourself, to say "No", to "yes" if that's what floats your boat, to be unapologetically YOU!.
This is it. Your Permission Slip. Go be awesome.
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Let me just state right up front that I love men in general and my husband in particular. Sure, men are hairy and loud. They fart and think that belching the alphabet is funny and they scratch their privates while in public but lets face it, where would we be without them?
Yes, I know that women are equally as awesome ( and obnoxious, in different ways)
Yes, I know that women can do all that men can do.
I also know that we need to start taking the time to appreciate each other more.
10 Things My Husband does that make me weak at the Knees:
(1) Empties the trash. No big deal, no "look what I'm doing for you". Nope, he just empties the trash. Sure he may not always replace the bin liner but so what?
(2) He is always glad to see me. It doesn't matter if I am looking frazzled, with my hair pointing in every direction but the one I want it too or all glammed up he always greets me with "Hey Beautiful" . That is a little slice of heaven right there.
(3)He calls me his Life Wife. We are both doing this marriage thing for the second time so that is a vote of confidence in our relationship and our bond. *swoon*
(4) He says "thank you" after every meal. No matter what I cook for him he thanks me for a delicious meal. Every time. *double swoon*
(5)He always checks the car. Putting petrol in the car is about my limit when it comes to car maintenance. So if I am off on a trip he does all the blokey checks; tyres, oil and whatever else needs doing. He also schedules all the servicing after asking me if I need the car that day.
(6)He made it part of our wedding vows to keep me in chocolate and "bling". He looks at jewelery catalogs more than I do!
(7)He listens. Whenever I am talking to him I get his full attention. He makes eye contact and fully engages with what I am saying regardless of whether it interests him or not.
(8)He sends me texts so I know he's thinking of me. Once or twice a day I'll get a text from him just to say "hi". Some are smutty. some are lovey dovey. Either way I know he's been thinking of me . *melting*
(9)The way he smiles. Just that. Seeing his face wreathed in joy makes my heart go all gooey inside.
(10) His hugs. He wasn't much of a hugger when we first got together but now he gives the best hugs ever.
Bonus (11) Love the way he is sooo gentle with animals.
Five Things I love about my Sons:
(1)They are not afraid to be totally themselves. They are all different and they are all proudly who they are.
(2) They embrace their soft side. My eldest has four kids and I have seen hi be incredibly gentle and tender with his daughters while encouraging them to be adventurous too. My middle son used to try and organize romantic interludes for my hubby and me when he was 11. Or he would pick flowers for hubby to give me. So sweet
(3) They call their mother. My youngest just had some great news. Who did he call? His Mum. One hour later and we ran out of things to talk about. So grateful that they keep in touch.
(4) They know what I like. Youngest sent me a purple scarf from the US. ( Love purple, love scarves!) Middle son gave me a turquoise Buddha for my birthday ( I now have quite a collection of Buddhas). Eldest sent flowers and photos of my grandy's.
(5) They all end their calls with "Love you Mum" * just a puddle on the floor*
Three Things I love about my (male) Hairdresser.
(1) He listens. Yup, listening is HUGE. HUGE I tell you!. By simply paying attention I feel validated, heard and valued.
(2) He cares. When my mother in law passed away earlier this year and I had a not-so-great haircut from one of the other stylists at the salon, Richard fixed it for me and made me feel great in the midst of a shitty, shitty time.
(3) He gets me. He understands the look I want to achieve and at the end of cutting my hair he says
" There you are. Now you look more like you." *swoon*
( If you want to check out his work go here )
Come back next week and I will post my "Ode to Women" for all the Fabulous ladies in my life.
Who do you need to show some appreciation too?
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Life is about change. We are either green and growing or ripe and rotting. Doesn't sound very inviting does it?
But the reality is that the only constant in life is change. Trouble is most of us get uncomfortable with change we like things as they are.
We like the status quo.
Its familiar and comfortable and comforting but you don't get to grow with comfortable and comfort.
Let go or be dragged. Zen Proverb
Seeds only grow when they are buried deep underground. There in the dark their outside is cracked open and then and only then can the transformation into a plant begin.
Chicks resting in their eggs can only be birthed from cracking the shell from the inside. If you try and crack it from the outside then life dies.
In order for a caterpillar to transform into a beautiful butterfly it has to completely let go of all it knows, melt into liquid and then.....wait.
Life is like that .
Transitions are never easy. Transitions are not comfortable but they are necessary for us to grow, change and transform into all that we can be.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Haruki Murakami
What are you struggling with at the moment?
What transitions are you going through?
What do you need to let go of?
Come over to my Facebook page and tell me what you are going through to go in the draw to win a FREE session with me either in person or via Skype. (valued at $80NZD)
Come back next week for some tips to get through it, get on top of it or let it all go.
On any given day we wear numerous masks; being who people expect us to be.
We are the good mother to our children, the perfect wife for our husband, the loyal worker and the trusted friend.
Sometimes in amongst all of that being everything to everybody we lose ourselves. We forget who we are, what we want , what lights us up.
Now I am not saying that we need to stop being all those other labels and hats that we wear .
What I am saying is that we need to give ourselves the space, time and commitment to being our most authentic selves. We need to get still and quiet and listen to our inner voice, our gut instinct, our true nature.
If you have been following along with the September Self Love challenge and the Orgasmic October - awakening all of our senses blogs you will have some ideas for creating more space for your authentic self to shine through. ( stay tuned for the November blog - I haven't finished with self love yet!).
Peeling off the layers of others ideas of you can take time. We are so much more than anyone has ever led us to believe. And as Marianne Williamson famously said "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."
But instead of reaching to be our most authentic selves we hide behind the mask of our small idea of our self.
I get it.
I truly do. If we were to be our most authentic selves we would have to put ourselves out there. We would have to be bigger than our fears and those suckers, on any given day, can go from tiny to monumental, insurmountable. We would have to fulfill our potential, not just talk the talk but actually take the action necessary to achieve our goals and dreams.
Mmmmmhmmmm scary!
So instead we play small.
We blame our parents. Our ex. The government.
We list all the reasons why we shouldn't go be awesome; I'm not good enough. Who am I to think I can do that?
Oh, that little negative voice in our head can be a real bitch at times. I hear her kick in every time I sit down in my chair to write a blog post or send out a newsletter. Some days she is very, very loud and insistent so I take her out for coffee and we have a little chat.
You see I have been getting the urge to write since as long as I can remember. I adore stationery (clue number one). I cannot go past a book shop with out stocking up on pens and paper and I now have lost count of how many notebooks and journals I have got ideas jotted down in.
I read. Constantly (clue number two). If there are no magazines or books to hand I will read a cereal packet from top to bottom.
Words and quotes make my heart do the happy dance (clue number three). But for some reason I never put all that together to mean I should be writing.
Even when I was told (repeatedly) in card readings, clairvoyant readings etc that I was a writer I would smile politely and nod and then file that away as "not on your life"
Then I found blogging. Oh happy day!!! Now I finally felt that I had a voice!!
Then people actually started reading, following and commenting. Joy upon joy!
What does this mean for you?
(1) Go back to the beginning. If you haven't found something that lights you up from the inside out go back and look for clues in your younger years. Trust me the child in you knew what lit you up then and you can rediscover it by looking backwards
(2)Keep it simple. What makes your heart sing doesn't have to be earth shattering and of epic proportions. What it does have to do is make you want to do the happy dance every time you think of it. It does have to make you lose yourself in the process of doing it. (3) Commit time to it. If it lights you up then you will be your most authentic self while you are in pursuit of it. Look at all the people who dress as their favorite characters at Comic Con? Do they care what others think of them? No, they are deliriously following their passion and have committed time and effort to it for no other reason than it brings them joy.
It might look like they are trying to be someone other than themselves but in reality they are tapping into the archetype of the hero to bring that aspect of themselves to the fore.
(4) Be open. Being our most authentic self means we have to be open and vulnerable. Sure some people might not like you and may be more than happy to tell you so but that is more about them than it is about you. Being your most authentic self does threaten those who are heavily invested in playing small, it shakes their comfortable view of the world. Leave that issue with them and keep being open and authentic.
(5) Play. Take a leaf out of Madonna and David Bowie's book and keep trying different persona's until you feel you have found your right fit. Just like a child plays dress up trying to figure out what being an adult will look like to them, try on different aspects of yourself until one just feels right. The more fun you have with it the better.
What do you think? What is the best way to find your most authentic self? What worked for you?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
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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If you are anything like me then you were raised on the idea
that one day a man in shining armor was going to come and rescue you from your
life of drudgery and whisk you away to a life of luxury. Now we all realize as
adults that this is pure fantasy but our inner child still firmly believes it
and is waiting patiently for the day that all her dreams will come true. Our
adult, rational mind sets about creating a life for herself, working hard,
doing all the right things but somewhere deep, deep inside a small voice can be
heard asking“ Where is my prince?”or if you are married already the voice wants
to know “ where is my life of luxury? Why isn’t my prince providing me with all
the luxury that I deserve?” ( I know, such a first world problem *rolling my eyes* )
I know because I’ve been there. It just recently dawned on
me that, even though I am strong capable woman with her own business, part of
me is still waiting ( and secretly) hoping that my Prince will provide me with
the life I feel that I deserve. I have to say it came as a bit of a shock as I
have always considered myself a very independent woman but here I was getting
frustrated that my life hadn’t panned out quite as I expected and blaming my
husband for all the perceived lack.
Fairy-tales have a lot to answer for
Then I took a deep breath and started to delve a little
deeper into my psyche and realized that its hardly surprising given the range
of fairy tales that we were all fed as impressionable young girls. How
entranced we were by tales of Sleeping Beauty or Snow White. One day our prince
would come too! We just had to be patient. And then along comes books like " Fifty Shades of Grey" which is a modern day fairytale for grown ups ( Okay, all you feminist ladies can stop rolling your eyes and gnashing your teeth! I bet if you look deeply enough you will find a faint glimmer of the inner child wailing for her prince too - I said deeply, ladies, look deeper. NO? Well its just me then)
So here I am at 52, admittedly with my handsome
prince, but still feeling like he should be doing more to make me happy.Where was my life of luxury?Why wasn’t I showered with gifts regularly?
After a few thoughts like that I started asking myself“ Why was I waiting for him to provide it for
me? What was stopping me from doing it for myself? That is when I realized that
I had to let my inner child know that she was more powerful than she realized
and she didn’t need to wait for any man to save for in reality only she can save her self.
Acknowledging that you are "waiting"is half the battle
Now that I have acknowledged my inner child’s
longing I can go about making her feel safe and strong using EFT and
meditation.
Some people are never going to admit, even if only to themselves, that this is a problem that they have. I must admit I didn't want to admit it. I have always been independent. When I became a solo mum I felt kind of proud of how well I coped. I kept food on the table, the mortgage paid and the kids fed and clothed. In fact when my ( now) hubby came along I was all "I've got this covered. I don't need a man" which is ridiculous. I was right I didn't need a man but I sure as hell wanted one.
So where do we go from here?
Like I said before it is about letting your inner child know that she is capable of doing anything and everything that she wants to do. A lot of us have baggage from when we were kids. Maybe we didn't feel loved enough or listened too or valued.
That was then, this is now and it's not too late for your inner child to hear what she needs to hear and feel.
Here's an EFT script you can try:
Karate chop: Even though my inner child is waiting for a Prince to come and "save"her I love and accept all aspects of myself and forgive myself for holding this so long. Even though my inner child would like things to be different I love and accept my life exactly as it is right now and I forgive my inner child and love and accept her.
EB: My inner child wants to know where her prince is
SE: I know that I am capable of looking after both of us
UE: I am willing to let my inner child know that she is loved and cared for
UN: I love and accept al aspects of myself
Chin: I am a strong capable woman
CB: No, I'm not
UA: I need someone to save me
TH: I'm waiting for my prince to come
EB: No I can do this
SE: I am capable
UE: I choose to believe that I am enough as I am now
UN: I've got this covered
Chin: Whew, it feels like a battle raging inside of me
CB: My inner child is not ready to give in
UA: I am not giving up on meeting a good man
TH: I appreciate the man I already have
EB: I am willing to invite in my highest and best self
SE: And know that I am fully provided for
UE: I can give myself everything I need
( Deep breath)
UN: I can relax and know that I am loved
Chin: I love me
CB: and that is enough
Deep Breath and have a large glass of water.
This is the start of a process and I suggest that you keep running through the above script and also tap on any other issues that may arise as you tap.
If you are wondering about the arguing back and forth this sets up cognitive dissonance in your brain which helps you clear the blocks and let go of old baggage.
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