Category: Wellness – Self Care

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The Common Cold – Just Being Awesome

In her book You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay says a bout with the common cold might indicate having:

“Too much going on at once. Mental confusion, disorder. Small hurts. “I get three colds every winter,” type of belief.”

Using affirmations to set a healing intent can be helpful. For colds, she suggests:

“I allow my mind to relax and be at peace. Clarity and harmony are within me and around me.”

Everyone gets sick. Not everyone has the luxury of resting long enough to heal completely. But if we look though our great big To Do List and determine what MUST be done and what COULD be done, we can prioritize getting rest.

Setting aside our self-assigned optional duties also opens space for the mind to settle and the body to heal.

“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”

― Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor
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Wait a Minute – This Too Shall Pass

The world is transient; life is fleeting and temporary. Contemplating this impermanence helps me experience any present moment. Be they good or bad – this too shall pass.

Joyful, lovely events seem brief and ephemeral. While the weight of stifling emotions come across as grueling and permanent. Both sentiments are real and not to be ignored or commanded. Neither last.

In his song “Somebody That I Used to Know,” Goyte sings:

“You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end”

Nice little how-do-you-do to figure out.

The choice is mine to make every day. Choose happy, or the blues.

But let me be intentional. Embrace the happiness in the moment. Allow the sadness to exist without some mindless diversion. These feelings are here to teach me something. Experience them, own them – and let them go. As Pema Chodron says:

“If we are willing . . to be mindful not only of what feels comfortable, but also of what pain feels like, if we even aspire to stay awake and open to what we’re feeling, to recognize and acknowledge it as best we can in each moment, then something begins to change.”

This is me having compassion for myself.

Being mindful of our national celebration of thanks – today is a fitting day to absorb this message of appreciation from Abraham Hicks:

“When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food and the joy of living, If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.”

― Tecumseh
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Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner

Self-Care is vital, yet often one of the first things out the window. Too much to do. Or so I tell myself. Buying the tall tale fed to me since birth. This, that and the other is my responsibility. Rebel and suffer the consequences. Real and imagined.

Check that box, get the degree, marry that guy. Make the money – keep up with the Kardashians. All worthy goals – if it’s what you REALLY want. What if I don’t?

Stepping off the treadmill and doing for me, opens the door to self-reflection. Knowing who I am and what I want is the most caring thing I can do for myself. This requires I recognize and accept my good and bad.

Depending on my story, this is a relaxed ramble, or a dreadful descent. Being dragged through a hedge backwards accurately describes a few of my outings. Didn’t level me, but it hurt. I got scars.

Witnessing my shadow self is uncomfortable. It requires I confront the bits that don’t want to be a Kardashian. That reveal I’m different; not weird, not wrong or deficient. Just not what’s expected by society.

Defense mechanisms like denial, projection and repression let me keep the support and admiration of my community. But the cost can be acute. Feelings of guilt and shame for alleged derelictions of duty are persuasive. Yet, when I disregard my wants and desires, anger and resentment will show up somewhere.

In her book, Women Who Run With The Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estes shared the words of Opal Whitely:

“Today near eventime I did lead
The girl who has no seeing
A little way into the forest
Where it was darkness and shadows were.
I led her toward a shadow
That was coming our way.
It did touch her cheeks
With its velvety fingers.
And now she too
Does have likings for shadows
And her fear that was is gone.”

Self-care feels good. It’s not selfish, but an abundant doorway to discovery. When I face my shadows, own my projections and accept my truth, I’m content – and one step closer to empowerment.

“The doors to the world of the wild Self are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves
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Ouch – Didn’t See That Coming!

Almost everyone gets their buttons pushed on occasion. After all, we live in this world and are a product of cultural conditioning. It’s natural to react when our sense of self gets poked. How I meet that moment is what’s important.

There’s a hierarchy to my emotional triggers. Some I’ve danced with for years and are like an old pair of jeans. They don’t knock me down; I can breathe, take a pause and move forward pretty quickly.

Some are rougher; familiar but dark and deeply embedded in my psyche. Still, after decades of practice I can visit my support toolkit and move past the “fight, flight, freeze” reaction.

Then there’s the blindside. Can’t prepare for it. I don’t know what I don’t know.

But I’m hella ready to go there. After I pick myself up off the pavement.

Making conscious what’s buried in my subconscious is a process. Like the onion analogy, each layer takes me closer to my true self; one memory at time. Sometimes the themes are similar, but with a nuance that tests my mettle. Grit is required.

Carrying old wounds is a heavy burden. When I avoid them, they show up as depression and despair. Use the blindside . . . walk through the Kubler-Ross grief cycle.

When I don’t own my resentment and suffering, I bounce around the grief cycle and never achieve acceptance. Fixating on someone else’s side of the street, denying my part, feeds bitterness. If I want to move on, I must do the work.

These two TikTok’s by Inna Aizenshtein are informative on how to see, own and release what triggers me:

@inna_aizenshtein

😔 “I want to stop being triggered by others” ☹️ “Why can’t I respond differently? I am better than this!” 😣 “I want to change my compulsive behaviors but willpower isn’t working” 🚫 Here is why willpower doesn’t work when you are responding to a trigger, or even to a deeply engrained habitual behavior: ⛑ So long as your reaction is reflexive, it is a subconscious protective response. It cannot be changed. ✨ If that feels disempowering, there’s a lot you can do! Here’s how: 🌱 Re-process the entire event through the lens of learning and growth. If you can attach a positive association (learning + growth) to your negative experience, and especially if you can begin to take aligned action based on that positive association, you will naturally rewrite the emotional charge that experience has on you. 💛 The less residual negative charge this past experience holds, the less your subconscious mind will try to reflexively protect you (in a way you may not like). Ultimately, this will help you create more space to pause in the moments following a used-to-be trigger, and respond in exactly the way you’d like to! (Part 1 of 2) 📝 In the next video, I share questions you can ask yourself to reframe the challenge in a positive light. You can work through this process alone, with a friend, or your therapist. #willpower #nowillpower #compulsivebehaviors #triggered #triggers #copingstrategies #copingmechanism #CBT #PTSD #pasttrauma #howtoheal #howtocope #healingjourney #subconscious #subconsciousmind #reflex #journaling #journalingquestions #alignedactions

♬ Inspirational Cinematic Piano – MMaxmusic
@inna_aizenshtein

Replying to @luxecakesbyelina 🤬➡️😌 Want to change how you react to triggers? ⛑ A reflex response happens before you become aware of it, so stop relying on your willpower. Here’s what you can do: 🤓 Attach a positive association to your negative experience (by reframing the entire event as an opportunity for learning + growth). The sooner you begin to take aligned action based on that positive association, the faster you will naturally rewrite the emotional charge that experience has on your subconscious mind. 📝 Here are some questions you can ask yourself to reframe the challenging situation in a positive light. You can work through this process alone, with a friend, or your therapist. 💛 The less residual negative charge this past experience holds, the less your subconscious mind will try to reflexively protect you (in a way you may not like). Ultimately, this will help you create more space to pause in the moments following a used-to-be trigger, and respond in exactly the way you’d like to! (Part 2 of 2) #triggered #healingjourney #subconsciousmind #tbm

♬ Inspirational Cinematic Piano – MMaxmusic

Appreciate the lesson.

“It might be possible that ‘triggered’ may not be the most helpful word … For me, there is a felt sense of violence in this word, while ‘touched and awakened’ more accurately describes what happens to these sequestered neural nets.

This gentler wording helps us cultivate a sense of meeting the experience every time we are so ‘touched’ with an appreciation for what it might be offering.” ― Bonnie Badenoch, The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships

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You Say I Only Hear What I Want To – Interesting

Saturday, I hiked in the North Georgia Mountains; on a beautiful day visiting a favorite cascading waterfall.

The trail is quite strenuous. And after Hurricane Zeta took out two bridges, it’s wicked. While the park re-opened after two years, repairs are still underway. Greetings dubious creek crossings and embankment climbing.

It was glorious.

That evening and next day I felt it. My body was having a conversation with me.

When people remind me to: “listen to your body” – I’m there! Yeah baby! No brainer. But do I? Do I really listen?

I “hear” my body – but maybe I only hear what I want to. Perhaps I don’t “listen” hard.

Goals, desires and ambitions carry me beyond my boundaries now and again. Not a bad thing. There’s little growth without pushing the envelope. But it’s good to listen to stiff muscles and creaky bones.

In Psychology Today, Kristen Fuller, M.D. explains the difference between simply hearing and actually listening (July 8, 2021):

  • “Listening is an active process, whereas hearing is a passive process
  • Listening requires paying attention, whereas hearing requires no concentration or attention skills
  • Listening requires empathy, curiosity, and motivation, whereas hearing is associated with being disconnected”

Actively pay attention, be compassionate and heed my aches and pains. This week I attend to rest, relaxation and restorative yoga. Taking a time out is me being generous and gentle to me.

“Resting and relaxing is as important as going out there and making it happen.” ― Hiral Nagda

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