Category Archives: Self-Care

Collage

2 Replies

So many things have bubbled up in the past few days, so many whispers and questions and fragments and fleeting thoughts, that the only title I could think of for this post was “collage,” a collection of things I am going to piece together, a composition of bits and pieces, hoping they amount to something whole.

art by Guillermo Perez Santos

I took some time to answer the questions from Patti Digh’s post on 37 Days, “What do you want to let go of? What do you want to create?” Here’s my lists:

What do I want/need to let go of as I end this year?

  • Distraction
  • Numbing out
  • Compulsive eating
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear of success
  • Waiting for permission
  • Staying stuck
  • Waiting to begin until the circumstances are perfect or the great idea hits
  • Being bullied and abused, by anyone, including me
  • Being in love with my problems, my brokenness
  • Being a victim
  • Negativity and criticism
  • Discursive mind
  • Confusion
  • Busyness
  • Self-hate
  • Judgement
  • People who don’t support, comfort, or “feed” me
  • Should
  • Have to
  • Pleasing, performing, and perfecting
  • Stress and exhaustion
  • Dis-ease
  • Pushing, forcing
  • Denying needs, delaying pleasure

What do I need to create in the new year?

  • Self-nurturing
  • Self-love
  • Self-care
  • Self-acceptance
  • Gratitude
  • Joy
  • Publications
  • A blog that’s a safe and supportive space, for me and my kind and gentle readers
  • An audience
  • Friendships that fuel my work, my path
  • Quiet and rest
  • Aspiration and intention
  • Trust and faith
  • Mindfulness
  • Awareness
  • Simplicity
  • Minimalism
  • Physical strength and ease
  • A healthy relationship with food
  • A balance of work and rest
  • Compassion
  • Wisdom
  • Bravery
  • Space and an open heart

Later, as I was reworking some of my “about” pages, for me and the blog, I was thinking about my evolving understanding of who I am, and what I have to offer.

from the Cool Hunter

I might not end up changing the whole world, but I do accept the reality that I can help change the world for some people, and at the very least, I can save myself. I am a compassionate visionary, an open-hearted warrior, a wholeheARTed and embodied practitioner of yoga, meditation, writing, and dog. 2011 was the year for me to become a better friend to myself. When I tried to think of what 2012 might be, I was careful to not start a long list of crazy plans and big ideas–you shouldn’t run a marathon the day you get your cast off your previously broken leg.  There are stages of healing, and I still need some pretty serious rehab and rest.

So what will 2012 be?

Retreat.

I got an email the other day announcing that Pema Chödrön is going on retreat next year.  In the Buddhist tradition, regular retreats are seen as an absolutely essential part of practice, of the path.  Retreat is a time to withdraw from one’s “regular” life, to go to a place of safety and privacy, of protection and quiet, and to spend the time in prayer, meditation, reflection, and study. So, as Ani Pema will do, I am also going on retreat next year.

Okay, so I won’t actually be going anywhere.  I can’t take a year off from my life and leave, but I can spend the next year sinking deeper into my practices (yoga, meditation, writing, and dog), open my heart wide, stay, sit, settle, be still.  Maybe in this way, my great work will reveal itself, arise naturally. I will continue to work on being a better friend to myself, balancing my life between work and rest, proceeding with my life-rehab, and fully embodying my life, but I will do all this in the spirit of retreat.

This is important, because when I was working with the second set of Comfort Queen questions today, from Jennifer Louden‘s book “The Comfort Queen’s Guide to Life,” I realized something.  The busyness and distraction that I struggle with, the wasting time on the internet, the obsessive checking, is because when I am tired, actually need rest, I can’t allow it unless I am sick or everything is done or it’s after 8 pm, because there is too much that needs doing.  So to make that inner task master monster think I’m doing something so it’ll leave me alone, I do busywork.  It’s like that bumper sticker, “Jesus is coming, look busy.”

Brokenness is learned, not innate.  The path for me is the way back to what is already and what has always been whole, to embody and love what is, and to be who I am.

sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness
~Galway Kinnell

Wishcasting Wednesday

8 Replies

Picture from Jamie's Post

What treasures do you wish for?

Treasure: wealth, riches, something greatly valued or highly prized or precious.

Practice: My practices are yoga, meditation, reading, writing, and walking with my dogs. These things sustain me, support me on my path, help me to see, teach me lessons, and allow me to live more deeply, to understand more completely, and to let go. I wish for these things to continue to do so, as I continue to do so.

Friendship: This begins with me. I don’t typically make New Year’s Resolutions, but this year I made a vow: to be a better friend to myself. I am still working on it, and as I do, I have such love and support from others who are already good friends.

Wisdom and Kindness: I know that we are born with these innate qualities, (as opposed to the idea that we are born basically bad, imperfect, and broken). Our basic goodness, our fundamental capacity for wisdom and compassion, is a precious gift, and I place my faith in it.

Self-Acceptance, Self-Care, and Self-Love: Having been in a long term abusive relationship with myself, I am working to let go of self-hate, the patterns of negative self-talk and abuse, and working to see myself as a deeply loved and valuable treasure.

Body Mindfulness: I wish to see my body as the gift that it is, to treat it as such, to feed it appropriately. It serves as a map of all my struggle, suffering, and joy, and I wish to love it. I wish to honor this vehicle, this oracle, this temple.

Time: Time to work at what I love and time to rest. Time to live, and to be aware that I am living, and to live mindfully.

Simplicity: Do less and be more, have less and share more, suffer less and love more. Simplify my schedule, quiet my mind, relax my grip, let go of my suffering, don’t bite the hook of strong emotions or thoughts, drop the story, be here now, and just breathe, just be. Trust that things are exactly as they are, and that all of it is workable.

All that I wish for myself, I also wish for you.

  • What treasures do you wish for? Go ahead, make your wish.