Category: being & becoming

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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?

 

Want to read more? Subscribe to my weekly love letter right here. I sent it out every Saturday night and I’m be thrilled if you wanted to read it. xoxo

 

 

 

 

 

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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.

 

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Inner Critics and Inner Cheerleaders

I’ve been quiet here on the blog for a few months. The Unbecoming Circle took most of my attention this past spring, as did wrapping up the last full semester of my graduate school career. As the Circle wrapped up, I found myself focusing on my family, my upcoming graduation and the wide open future of my private practice.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out what I want my website to look like, how the blog will evolve, what programs I will continue to offer online, what my in-person practice will focus on. I’ve wondered and dreamed and worried and fretted. I’ve known and then questioned and then known and then questioned again.

And while I’ve been focusing on this new becoming, the voices in my head and heart have been making themselves known.

No, I haven’t had a psychotic break. The voices I’m writing about are the ones that we all have. The ones that whisper and the ones that scream. The ones that encourage and the ones that try to keep us right where we are.

The voices of the Inner Critic and Inner Cheerleader.

During the spring session of the Unbecoming Circle, we spent some time unearthing and exploring our inner critics and cheerleaders: who they are, where they come from, what their voices sound like, what their motivation is to speak (or not!) to us. We got to peel away a layer or two and start to see how important both of these voices are. We also were able to start to give love to both of them, and to understand that both the critic and the cheerleader are parts of us. Parts of us that we need to embrace if we want to be whole.

The work I did quietly on the sidelines while the circle gathered helped to calm both of my voices a bit. I mindfully noticed as I have been trying to figure out this  next iteration of my working life that my Inner Critic isn’t as loud, she isn’t as aggressive as she has been in the past. I also observed that my Inner Cheerleader isn’t as frantic as she once was, instead more calmly, more knowingly, cheering me on.

By giving these two aspects of ourselves attention, by acknowledging them, understanding them and sending them love, we can start to hear the real message that may be hidden behind their words and feeling. By embracing both of these aspects of our Self, we can start to hear our own embodied wisdom.

Who is this Inner Critic and Inner Cheerleader? Where do they come from?

The Inner Critic is often motivated by fear. She don’t want us to take risks. She don’t want us to get hurt. The Inner Critic is trying to protect us from the Big Bad World. Hers is the voice of experience; she is born of that time (or times) we were picked on at the playground, or that time the cute boy didn’t reciprocate, or the time we failed at some important test or task, or those times we disappointed those we love. She is born out of pain and longing: the pain of not being accepted; the longing to be loved.

So she shouts because what is most important in the world to her is that we not feel the pain of failure or disappointment; the wounding of being unliked or even unloved.

And yet, pain, failure, disappointment, and yes even being unliked and unloved are all part of a fully lived life.

The Inner Cheerleader, conversely, is motivated by hope. She has the same experiences as the Inner Critic, however she isn’t fearful that everything will always end in failure or pain. She believes that things can be different than they have been in the past. And more importantly, she believes that even if you fail, even if you feel pain or disappointment, even if someone doesn’t like you or doesn’t love you, you are strong enough to get through it and start again.

embodied July and AugustNext week I will guide a one week online workshop exploring and embracing our Inner Critics and Inner Cheerleaders. We will unearth their motivations and voices. We will recognize how they are each an integral part of us, and also that they are not the whole of us and neither controls our decisions or our life. Then for one week in August we will take the time to explore and embrace our Shadow Self (more on her later).

Already a beautiful group of women have gathered to do this work this summer: taking a week to dive into our depths, to understanding our unconscious motivations, to connect more fully to our own embodied wisdom through mindfulness, creativity and stream-of-conscious writing. It would be amazing to have you join us.

 

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Trust lost and found

Over the last two months, in two different workshops,** I have received the writing prompt “I was told.” Writing for these prompts has opened a floodgate for the myths and stories and, let’s call them what they are, pack of lies, that I internalized during my childhood and young adulthood. Some of these lies I was actually told, as in another person said the words to me, others I simply understood, because of actions or reactions of those around me. Those who had the most impact, who did the most damage with what they told me, were also, ironically perhaps, the ones who also did the most good for me, the ones who taught me about perseverance and resilience; the ones who showed me how hard it can be to love another when you hate yourself; the ones who showed me who I knew I didn’t want to be and gave me ways to heal generations old wounds and to make something better for my own children.

Many of the stories, I have learned, are universal for women, they are the threads that bind us together, and in the words of one of my favorite guides, it is up to us to weave those threads into a net, to catch us and support us all, each other, each of us supporting and witnessing our sisters in this journey to ourselves.

This is why I do this work, to weave those nets, to create space for women to finally share the stories they were told and to release them to the wind and fire. Calling women together in circle is powerful work, and yet the real work I can’t take credit for: I create a space, and the women who gather do the hard labor of digging into themselves, exploring and examining pieces here and there, throwing what doesn’t fit or work into the crucible and transforming themselves.

I have been witness to this time and again, both in circles I have lead and in circles I participate in. One of the stories I was told is that I can never trust women. I held this story as truth for a long time. This story ran deep, as not only could I not trust other women, but I also couldn’t trust myself, my intuition, my own embodied wisdom. I couldn’t trust the messages that my own body and heart would scream or whisper. Others, men generally, always knew better and best. I spent a long time living this way, attaching myself to men, both as friends and lovers, trying to let them lead the way to me.  I had very few women friends, and the ones I did have I held at arm’s length in many ways. I was lonely even though I was surrounded by people. I was lost even though I had so many people there to lead the way for me.

Eventually I realized that lie for what it was: a lie, a story, an untruth, a myth. Slowly I started to have friendships with women, real friendships, the kinds where I started to share parts of myself that I had kept hidden away for so long. I began to learn to admit my own imperfections and slowly, oh so fucking slowly, I learned to not judge others of theirs.

Through these friendships I learned to love myself. I learned to acknowledge and accept things about myself that I didn’t really like. I learned to break through the binds of the stories and myths that were holding me back and refashioned those ropes into a net. I learned that none of us are perfect, we all deserve empathy and what we may see on the surface of someone is not their whole being. I learned to listen to the truth of others and then slowly began to listen to the whispers and screams of my own truth; the ones that had been trying to make themselves known for years. I learned to listen to my body and her own wisdom and I learned to fight for her, with the same passion I would fight for my daughter.

I learned to trust. Myself. My body. Other women. It didn’t happen overnight, and it was slow and sometimes painful. And yet the beauty and fullness that is my life now, is amazing. I am going in new directions and following my own intuition. I am being more and more fully me, in each moment, each day. My body now tingles with excitement at the unknown future instead of shaking in fear. Because I know I’ve got this. And if I don’t, I know I have a net of amazing women to catch me.

And for my work, I get to guide other women to do the same.

Join this next circle of women and learn to trust yourself again. Learn to listen to the whispers and growls and roars of your own embodied wisdom. Dare to step into the crucible and transform. We begin on March 20th and there are a few spots still left for this next iteration. Find your trust again. Take the first step on this quest, and connect with me.

Trust Lost and Found Being and Unbecoming**Isabel Abbot‘s Writing the Womb & In Her Skin and Amy Bower‘s Dream Lab workshops.