As write this it is raining and gray outside. I am fighting the urge to curl up under a quilt and nap the afternoon away. While I see nothing wrong with a good afternoon nap, especially on a soggy day, this soggy day I took a tiny walk outside instead. The fresh, cool air and the chilly rain lifted my spirits as much as I imagine it is nourishing our drought parched soil.
Sometimes my soul needs a gentle baptism of nature.
A reminder that I am part of her, that she has power over me, that I can always find myself in relation to her. I need her. I forget this. My clever, clever mind convinces me that my memory of nature can bypass my direct need for her in the present.
So I walked in the rain.
With out an umbrella or hat even though I am feeling a bit sick. Just enough to feel the moisture in my lungs and the dampness on my skin. Long enough to appreciate the shinning drops of water hanging on the leaves.
I let myself be in the rain, willing to be rained upon, becoming another part of nature the rain hangs on.
Post Christmas, pre New Years. My favorite week of the year. The holiday madness is over, the world slows down, I cozy up by the tree for some gentle reflection and future dreaming.
This year however, I have been thrown into a different kind of reflection.
Not so warm and cozy and more blistering fire. Literally. You see I burned my hand on Christmas day. Badly. While it is healing miraculously fast and well (heart swelling, deep soul gratitude for the grace that this potentially devastating burn is just very painful), I am limited as to what I can do for a while.
Good news, any and all housework is out! Thankfully, typing and knitting are workable so I can keep up pretty well on work and pleasure projects. But even a brisk walk causes my hand to burn because of the increased blood flow.
Slow and calm is my medicine right now.
The burn was simple accident. I was making a Dutch Baby for Christmas breakfast and grabbed the screaming hot skillet filled with puffy goodness without a pot holder. I was busy talking, I was tired, I was distracted from what I was doing, I needed a plate and then, Owww! These things happen.
Except.
For days I had been getting whispers. You know, those teeny, tiny moments; those quiet, subtle inner voices giving you important guidance. Mine had been telling me to slow down. To stop pushing so hard. To relax into all that was happening instead of fighting and trying to dominate it like an opponent. To connect into my body and find my trust that all was well and everything would get done.
And yet, I pushed. I went faster. I squeezed just four more things in every day even though I was exhausted. I said yes when I wanted to say no. Not from a place of fullness, generosity or inspiration, but from urgency, obligation, and scarcity.
And I got burned.
And so I stopped.
Trying for perfection. Doing more than I wanted. Pushing to get even more done. Over riding my inner knowing and rhythm. All old lessons of mine it is time to revisit. It would be so easy to make myself wrong for needing to back to my own personal spiritual growth 101. To shame myself for having to relearn this old stuff yet again!
But all of us, we will always be revisiting of our personal basics courses.
Re-enrolling in “Self Care 101” or “Beginning Boundary Setting for Accommodating Women”, or “Introduction to Listening to Your Intuition.”
Not because you or I are not learning our lessons, but because life changes. WE change. Our growth and expansion needs to be more deeply rooted in foundation or else we would fall over. Think of a huge tree with shallow or weak roots. It is a crash waiting to happen. Our personal 101’s are our roots essential nutrients.
When you find yourself thinking “I can’t believe I am here again, I thought I handled this one” remember that you did handle it.
You learned the lesson and now life is asking you to revisit the wisdom. Learn it newly from this place. Because growth is happening, something bigger is in store for you. Something new is on the horizon and the Unseens are showing you how to deepen your roots so you can embrace all that is yours to claim.
What are your personal growth, spiritual awareness basics classes?
How do you know if it is time to revisit any?
Is the new year calling you to something more, think about revisiting some of your personal/spiritual 101’s.
I wish you rich discovery and glittering unfolding as the New Year awaits!
Just don’t forget the potholders. Expansion is hot.
******
What expansion is the New Year calling you to?
More joy? More wild discovery?Finding Your Wild Wonder, a 3 week e-course joy ride to your magic life starts January 13. Register here.
Maybe you are looking for some personal guidance. Some help deciphering the whispers wanting your attention. I’ve got you covered with The Guidance Sessions. Details here.
Warning: Slaying of spiritual and seasonal platitudes ahead…
Stop caring so much about others.
Really.
Stop.
I know, I know. “Give unto others” and “’Tis the season of giving”. We were raised on the mandate to put others first, so of course you don’t think of yourself first. Or second, or are you even on the list? You make sure you anticipated every need and wish of everyone else, and more.
But you see, this is wrong. You think your concern for others, helping them, serving them, caring for and about them is your calling. Your family, children, friends, your clients and colleagues, you care soooo much. You would do anything for them. It is your reason for being. Your purpose in life. To make life better for others. You love people.
So you take on the pain of the world. You worry and feel guilty when you can’t do enough. It is part of being a goodhearted, kind and spiritual person, right?
Wrong!
Your Purpose, Reason for Being, Calling, is to live your life in joy and wild abandon.
Everything will sort itself from here.
Think about it.
Are you overly tired? You are giving too much.
Are you resentful? You are thinking more about someone else and dismissing yourself.
Are you indecisive to the point of stagnation? You are looking for proof outside of yourself, abdicating authority and not trusting yourself.
Are you overwhelmed? You are taking on more than your share of responsibility.
You think putting others first will lead to bliss, into a life with meaning.
It wont. Not if you are ignoring your own precious life bliss.
When was the last time you rolled on the floor laughing with tears streaming from you eyes?
So happy you caught yourself smiling with out reason?
Overflowed with inspiration?
Danced with out a thought as to how you looked?
Felt so good in your skin the number on the scale was irrelevant?
Allowed unexpected beauty to stop you in your tracks?
Looked in the mirror and was seduced by your own eyes?
Treated yourself with extravagance that feeds your deepest soul?
If it has been more than 24 hours since having a moment of full bodied delight, you are exhausting yourself and calling it being a caring and responsible person.
Forget everyone else and feed your own thirsty, craving, wild, heart.
Fill her. Tend to her with fierce devotion and focus. Only when she is filled will your caring for others be your true expression,not a road to your own depletion. Only then will the extraneous melt away leaving your true life meaning.
Your caring will then be sourced in abundance and bounty, not duty. Or worse, a strategy to avoid being in your own life.
I can hear the challenges already. “This is selfish.” “This is the worst kind of self indulgence.” “I can’t just stop taking care of people.” “I’d be an awful person.” “People depend on me.” You know what? I don’t carewhat you think putting yourself first means (see how that works).
Do it anyway. As the rule rather than the occasional exception.
Give yourself a good time. And then do for others. Or most heretical, choose not to. Put the oxygen mask on yourself first, not in order to put it on someone else, but because You deserve to breathe.
I see women all the time, worn out at the deepest level because for years and decades they have over given and think it caring and loving. Because they haven’t been taught to balance their own care and joy with that of others. Because they buy the story it is selfish to think of themselves, or that they don’t have time, or that they have to earn it through good deeds.
All lies.
I challenge you to give yourself bliss!
I mean full bodied, consuming elation, happiness, jubilation, once a day, at least once a day, for one week. Then tell me putting your own pleasure first doesn’t change everything! Doesn’t change the whole landscape of what caring truly means, what it feels like and how it works. Caring for self/caring for others has a divine reciprocity that builds momentum, not depletion. But it only works when you start full.
I’ve been down the road of depletion to the point of life collapse because I gave more out than I allowed in.
I can tell you the path of pleasure is much more fruitful in every way than giving out of habit, expectation, or fear you wont be enough.
Pleasure through self caring and honoring is the most sustainable and renewing way to source the true loving generosity of your heart.
How do you get this state of self caring, find your path of pleasure?
I have had a lump in my throat and tightness in my chest the past few days, feeling like there is a really big cry waiting to happen but is stuck. Trapped in layers of tiny distraction and rambling busyness, perhaps held in place by fear and anxiety of what the really big cry means.
And yet, bits of this cry are seeping out in tiny moments, little moments of small consequence. I am teary, feeling tender, and the critical, judging part of me wants to labeled it “overly sensitive.” This is my personal red flag to look deeper. When ever I criticize my feelings as “overly sensitive” I know something important is going on that needs care, attention and acceptance.
So I follow the tears back to their source, back into the tiny, little moments, seemingly inconsequential.
– Making pie crust and remembering my grandmother.
– Marathon watching of Dr. Who, again.
– Seeing light though fall leaves.
– The house across the street aglow in the dark with Christmas lights.
– Laughing with my neighbor.
– Knitting on the couch with a cup of tea.
When I look into these moments I see that the lump and tightness are not some big scary thing I don’t want to deal with that got locked in my chest and throat.
It is Wonder.
Tiny, shimmering moments of Wonder making their way up through the hardened strata of ordinary life, past overly long to do lists, ignoring deadlines and obligations. Wonder finding its way out through my tears like water finding its way up out of the earth and flowing where needed.
The tears are moments of softening into moments too large to fit into the box my mind gives them. The tenderness is the releasing of the shell I put around myself. The lump in my throat and tightness in my chest are me bracing against a moment I don’t yet understand.
Wonder expands me so I can take it in. The love, adventure, beauty, friendship, peace my mind wont let fit into the “little moments of small consequence.” Wonder reveals the magic always here yet rarely seen, even more rarely felt.
Wonder is the portal to the More we crave at the root of our being. It is how we can see the sacred, the transcendent, the enchantment of life.
It is the joyful path to the more of You.
Risk the big ugly cry, follow the unexpected tears, open to the tiny moments. Begin to feel into, soften into, the always present Wonder of your life.
This is why the Finding Your Wild Wonder e-course is happening.
Because choosing to create space for Wonder to bubble into your life will change you.
It will expand you.
It will leave you happy.
It will lead you to your heart’s desire.
It is waiting for you, a three week joy ride to your magic life. Beginning January 6.
(This is one of my all time favorite posts. It talks about one of the most sacred and important gratitude practices we can have in a way I still can not find better words for. Thankfulness for ourselves.)
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the States. If we are lucky it is a day where we slow down, enjoy family, friends, and soul nourishing food. (FYI, I wholeheartedly believe that the second, or more!, helpings of potatoes and pie enjoyed in the space celebration and love nourish us more deeply than we know, so savor well!)
It is a time to bring awareness to all the ways in which we are blessed and loved.
Here is my Thanksgiving wish for you. That in the midst of celebrating in what ever way you do, whether with a large group of loved ones or alone (because sometimes we are alone and that is okay), or working so that the rest of us can be home, I want you to take some time to be thankful for You. This is especially important if your holiday is the kind where old triggers, resentments or family drama predictably play out.
You matter, You are important, You are a gift.
You, in all your beauty and imperfection. You, for the way you wake up and choose over and over and over in the course of a day to move forward, handle what is in front of you and love what matters.
You, for the way you don’t always get it right but keep trying and growing anyway.
There is so much to be thankful for.
From the way your heart beats and keeps the biological rhythm of your life moving, to the way your heart spiritually expands in love every time it heals form a hurt or extends its love to another.
From the way you dream even when disappointment tempts you to stop, to the way you respond in generosity even when it is inconvenient and for no other reason than you care.
I know it can be hard to see sometimes, the way you are amazing and special.
We are not that practiced at seeing, let alone expressing thankfulness for ourselves. But do it, try it. I know it is vulnerable and can feel awkward but it will open you up to your life an amazing and honest way.
I deeply want this for you:
To know the intimate joy of receiving yourself, acknowledging yourself, You feeling thankful for You.
May you have a wonderful, warm, abundant Thanksgiving!
(I have something special coming in January, something I wish deeply for you. It’s about wonder and wildness and giving yourself more of what you truly want! Details here.)
As write this it is raining and gray outside.
