Author: gwynn

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Honoring your Self

For the last two years I have provided a free offering called Mindful Mantras, where each Sunday I send out a word or short phrase for the recipients to focus on during the week. I set up the emails each December, all 52 for the year, so that when I receive the Sunday prompt it’s a surprise for me too. I’m almost always amazed how those weekly words fit into my life and how they really do help give me focus. And it never fails that when I start to think I won’t offer the emails again the following year I start getting emails from other recipients telling me how much those single words and short phrases really help them.

I am reminded why I do this work. More importantly I am reminded that I simply need to do the work. It doesn’t matter if any one else appreciates it. And still, it is nice to get notes that say “What you do matters.”

I notice that when I get into my ruts of feeling like what I do doesn’t matter, that I don’t matter, a couple of things are going on. First there is likely a huge shift occurring within me: a layer is about shed or a new one is about to be born; I am transitioning from one way of being to another and the discomfort and dis-ease of process has me questioning All The Things.

In these times of discomfort and dis-ease I am reminded of the need to care for me: to stop; to be; to rest; to replenish. In the Unbecoming Circle this week is our week of rest and I am reminding each of the women of the importance of stopping, of giving permission, of allowing. The importance of accepting our Self. Of being. Being worthy and deserving and enough. And mostly, our simple existence means we matter.

Each of us have gifts to offer this world. We may or may not have the honor of knowing what these gifts are. We may or may not have the privilege of knowing when these gifts have been received by others. We may or may not have “special” gifts. But each and every one us is a gift to this world. We each matter. With out our existence the world would be a little duller, a little less.

We are each Sacred. Often I meet women and men who treat others with so much love and respect and completely dishonor themselves. They would give the shirt off their backs to another person in need, but won’t even stop to give themselves a cup of tea to enjoy. I hear the excuse over and over of there not being enough time; there is too much to do; They need me more; They are The priority. And I almost always respond with, All The Things can’t wait for ten minutes?

Sometimes people have the idea that self-care means taking hours and hours out of your day to nourish and replenish. It can mean that. I think all of us would enjoy that. And yet, self-care can be done in ten minute or less snippets throughout the day. Six ten minute breaks gives you an hour, and while yes, having that full hour all at once would be better, six ten minute breaks during our busiest times is better than not giving ourselves the rest we deserve.

Those breaks give us, and our gifts to the world, the chance to replenish, the chance to nourish, the chance to breathe and be. Those breaks remind ourselves that we are important, worthy and sacred. Those breaks show others that we are important, worthy and sacred and give them the space to honor their own importance, worthiness and sacredness.

I remind the women in my circles, and I include me in this, that we deserve to be taken care of. We deserve the little breaks and the extra effort. We deserve to be loved and honored and respected. This honoring and respecting needs to begin from within. We need to see our own beauty. We need to acknowledge that we are important, even if we aren’t exactly sure what our gifts are. It’s not really our business to know how we are making the world a better place. It is only our business to know that we do; that our existence makes the world brighter, more beautiful, more loving.

Honor yourself today. Recognize the truth that you matter; you are worthy; you are sacred. Give yourself the love and respect you would, and do, give to others. For ten minutes. All The Things can wait, trust me.

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Ebb & Flow: the Ritual of Self-Care

The last two nights my daughter and I have settled down before bed with a cup of ginger tea, some light snacks and watched an episode of Gilmore Girls. We’ve been watching GG for a while now (we’re on season 5) and she loves it (I watched it when it originally ran and loved it then too). It’s become our quiet girl time at the end of hectic toddler-centric chaotic days. Being in our new home, with it’s new set up, is giving us permission to start new routines and rituals; new ways of caring for ourselves and each other; new ways of being together.

As we settle more into our new home, we are settling back into some of our old routines and rituals, too. This weekend the office got more unpacked and out came the magazines and scissors and glue sticks and pushpins, along with the bulletin boards and blank journals. My girl and I each started new intuitive collage boards and she has been filling up her new “inspiration journal” with magazine cuttings and her own sketches.

I have been trying, and floundering a bit, to find my own ritual again with writing. Writing is my main form of self-care. Getting my thoughts out on the screen or page is so fulfilling for me and grounds me in a way that nothing else can. It allows me to empty my head so I can be more present and in my body. Stream of conscious writing allows me the space for insights and understanding, of myself, my children, and others.  I have tried many times, even before the move, to write at the end of the day, to empty my head so I can settle into sleep. And the truth is I am so depleted by the time I can get a few moments of quiet to gather my thoughts, that what I really need to simply zone out a bit: watch some TV, read a book, catch up on some blogs, text with friends. Each of those is also a form of self-care and each one helps to center and ground me in its own way, helping me to replenish and relax. They are my real end-of-day grounding, giving me that small break between the chaos of the day that has been and the chaos of bedtime that is to come. It gives me that needed time to replenish so that bedtime doesn’t end in meltdowns (mine) or screaming (mine) or tears (mine).  (It doesn’t guarantee they won’t meltdown or scream or cry, but it gives me the reserves to manage their emotions calmly and lovingly).

This morning the stars aligned and I am up before the toddler and sitting at the laptop and writing. As I was making my coffee my daughter awoke, came downstairs and got her own breakfast. We said our good-mornings and I came up to the office and started to write and then a few moments later she came in and grabbed her inspiration journal to draw in while she watches a YouTube video (or five). I am feeling this new ritual, of up before my toddler, being born and am thinking it may be time to start going to bed earlier so I can have these quiet mornings I so desperately need to start my days.

I am not a morning person, or really a night person either. I have always needed to come into the world slowly as I wake. At various points in my life I have been able to honor this, and at other times not so much. The last few days have been filled with intensity and meltdowns (mine and theirs) and exhaustion (mine and theirs) as we figure out how to function without naps during the day (over-tired toddler, over-wrought mama, over-stimulated almost-preteen). Yesterday, as I took little breaks to breathe, and then once my husband was home, a slightly longer break to replenish, I remembered again my desperate need to start the mornings on my terms, and not theirs.

I don’t have much control in the chaos of toddler and preteen life. The oddest things (to me) set either of them off into tears and frustration. I, of course, do my best to create an interesting life for the two of them, always playing with the ebb and flow of activity and downtime to meet their ever-changing needs. I can find myself so focused on creating a good life for them that I forget to create the pockets I need for my own well-being. As mamas this happens often, we get so hyper focused on creating the “perfect” (ha!) life for our children that we deplete ourselves and find ourselves unsatisfied and frustrated. This is what it is to be a parent in this modern age.

Yet, we need to remember to care for ourselves. The ebb and flow of focus on them and then on us is healthy and natural. Our children need to see us caring for ourselves so they can learn to do the same. They need to see us pursuing our passions so they will have the courage to do the same. They need to watch us set boundaries and give space for us to replenish ourselves, so as they grow older they know it is okay for them to do the same.

This is how we model self-care: not by taking care of them every moment of the day, but by slowing down and sometimes even stopping and taking care of ourselves, and allowing them to witness this ritual. It is in modeling for them this natural ebb and flow (sometimes I am focused on you and sometimes I need to be focused on me) that they learn it for themselves.

How do you take little breaks in your day to replenish and nourish yourself? How do you model self-care and self-love for your children? How do you create a fulfilling life for yourself?

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Damn Oxygen Masks

When people talk about the importance of self care, the analogy of the airplane oxygen mask is almost always mentioned. You know the one, you have to put your mask on first before you will be able to help anyone else. There are variations on this theme, the idea that you can’t fill anyone else’s cup if yours is empty; flowers can’t grow in barren soil; etc.

The not-so-subtle message behind these analogies is the only reason to fill your own cup, or put on your own damn oxygen mask, is so you will be able to take care of others. This message both frustrates and infuriates me.

It is true that we absolutely can’t take care of others well if we don’t take care of ourselves. Parents of young children or adult children with aging parents or caregivers of any kind understand this. You can only run on fumes for so long before you crash. This is truth.

AND, I would love us to change the message of self-care from one of doing it so we can serve others, to one of doing it because we are worthy and deserve to be cared for, ourselves.

It is a not-so-subtle difference in the message. If you are only taking care of yourself in order to care for others, you don’t need to feel worthy. In fact you be quite the martyr, only giving in to care for yourself when others insist, with the intention of only doing it so you can keep on running yourself ragged caring for others. You can stay stuck in this story of not-deserving, not-good-enough, unworthiness your whole life in fact, while still dabbling in bits of self-care, only as necessary. You could even claim that you do care for yourself! Win-win, right?

I don’t think so. And I bet you don’t really either.

What if you change your story about your worth, your value, your deservedness? What if you shifted your thinking to knowing you are good-enough, at all you do. Not perfect, good-enough. What if you let good-enough, be enough?

What would happen?

How could the rest of your life shift if you took that bubble bath, or walk, or enjoyed that quiet cup of tea or glass of wine, because you wanted to? Because you deserved to have that time to you?

How would others start to treat you if you treated yourself with respect? If you acted as if you deserve nourishing and respect and to be honored?

What if you realized you were a sacred being?

What would happen?

 

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Nourishment, Reconnection & Sexual Beings

In the Unbecoming Quest Circle, we spent the spring moving down into the Underworld, like Inanna, shedding layer after layer, going deeper and deeper, finding our own Shadow Self. We spend the time unearthing and questioning, revealing and learning more and more about the women we are, the women were, the women we came from.

We then took a three month break, leaving us in Underworld to sit with our Shadow Self. Some of the women joined me for the two Embodied intensives and we dug and unearthed some more, however for most those three months we were apart. I wanted the women of the circle to have that time to rest, to allow things to simmer and stew and settle. It was a time to be nourishing and replenishing, enjoying the summer and preparing for the work of fall.

A few weeks ago we gathered back together and we have begun our ascension from the Underworld. For this second module our focus is on healing the wounds we uncovered in the spring. We will be spending these three months focusing on deeply connecting to our bodies and all their wisdom. We are learning to let go of old stories of unworthiness or being undeserving. We are digging into learning to nourish and honor our bodies and spirits. We are healing old wounds.

And we are talking about sex, sexuality and what it is to be a sexual being.

Sex is a tough conversation for many of us for many reasons. So many have wounds around the topic of sex. Some experienced sexual abuse as a child. Some were raped. Some were taught that their bodies are “dirty.” Some learned at an early age that a woman’s body can fail her. Some learned to abuse their own bodies by either depriving themselves of sex and being sexual or by being over-sexual but not really feeling it.

It is a can of worms, this topic of being a sexual being. This week we are linking together the ideas of nourishment and sexuality and how they could come together, what stories are stopping us, what new stories are we ready to create.

Sometimes we can dive right into the deep end: we can go straight for the old story and take away it’s power by creating a new and healthier story. More often however, we need to move more slowly.

Sometimes it is the baby-steps that are the most powerful. Giving yourself fifteen minutes to enjoy a quiet cup of tea and daydream. Or twenty minutes (or more) for a relaxing bath. Maybe it’s finally getting out the door to that yoga class or for that walk. Perhaps it is sitting down and meditating. It could be a flash of realizing you are deserving of a beautiful meal and cooking it for yourself. This list of baby steps to becoming fully embodied, to connecting deeply to your Feminine self, to healing the Feminine and Masculine wounds you carry in your body, it could go on and on.

At the core of these baby steps is the slow integration of this truth: we are all beautiful, worthy and deserving beings.With each walk you take in nature or each bath or each quiet cup of tea, you are emphasizing this truth, you are acknowledging your own worthiness. You are changing your story.

As we connect more and more to our bodies, to our deserving, to our creativity, we are also connecting more and more to our Feminine self, and as part of that, our sexuality. As we heal the wounds of our past, our mothers’ pasts, our grandmothers’ pasts, our great-great-great-great grandmothers on our father’s side past… we are also healing all our collective wounds about sexuality.

It is a circular and spiraling and intertwining path. There is ebb and flow to this work. Always. And sometimes we truly can dive in, head on, and heal a wound. In my experience though, those times are rare. Most often, we need the baby steps.

Did you enjoy this? If so, I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter. It comes out every Saturday evening and you can sign up to get yours right here.

 

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Coming back, taking care, finding center (again)

It’s been almost three months since I last wrote here. A lot has been happening in my personal and business life and writing has had to take a back seat. This is the ebb and flow of creative life, of life in general: our focus shifts as our needs and the needs of those we love most shift too. There is never any true “balance,” or rather, if there is it is very fleeting. We move our attentions where they need to be each day, and hopefully we find moments here and there to remember to connect to ourselves and our passions.

Or maybe we don’t find those moments. Maybe our grounding and centering and self-car practices all ebb and flow along with the rest of life. Maybe we find ourselves after a stretch of hectic and very stressful months completely ungrounded and disconnected from our body.

Or maybe we don’t. Maybe some of our practices carry us through, we remember to take five minutes here and ten there and then when the chaos quiets and our life shifts and flows again, we dive deeper into the practices.

I’ve slowly started coming back to my daily writing and body-focused practices over the last two weeks. My initial motivation was the start of the second module of the Unbecoming Quest Circle. Reconnecting with the women who allowed me to guide them through the spring has been so inspiring. Seeing how each of them have shifted and grown and shed and blossomed since we began our work together six months ago leaves me in a place of awe. Watching them dive back into this work, after our summer break, seeing the vulnerability and the truth coming out from each of them… well, it has reminded me to get back to my work.

The more I work with women, the more I see how many barriers we all have around taking care of ourselves. The stories run deep: we are being selfish, others need us more, we don’t deserve it. These stores run hand in hand with the stories we all have about our bodies, both in general and specifically sexually. The story of being a “good girl” can run so deep and not wanting to be a “bad girl” or be accused of being “selfish” we disconnect from our bodies and our Self and continue to nourish and honor every other person on the planet.

How do we make the shift from total self-disconnection to honoring and nourishing our body, our Self? How do we change the story about being selfish or unimportant or undeserving? How do we move from living in our disembodied heads to becoming deeply tuned into our own innate, embodied wisdom?

One way to start is by taking care of ourselves. To get quiet for a moment, each day, and to listen. What does your heart have to say? Your belly? Your neck? Your thighs?

We could get curious about ourselves and simply ask the questions of “what if”: what if I took five minutes (or ten or fifteen) to simply sit and daydream? What if I took these moments to breathe deeply into my pelvis? What if I made going for a walk each day a priority? What if I closed the door to go to the bathroom (every women who has or had a young child knows exactly what I am talking about!).

We could start by taking ten minutes, just ten minutes each day to focus on us. Those ten minutes could be ten one minute breaks, two five minutes or a the whole ten at once. Just ten minutes to breath, to ground, to connect to us.

What would happen if you took ten minutes out of your day just for you?  What if for ten minutes a day, you honored and nourished yourself as the beautiful, deserving and sacred person that you are?

What if?

…

If you enjoyed reading this, then I invite you to subscribe to my weekly love letter right here.