I used to think self-care, self-love meant getting a pedicure and taking a bath. Then I moved into understanding self-care meant managing my finances and setting my life up in a way that made sense to take care of my well-being. Over the years I have come to know self-care and self-love as about being compassionate, loving and kind to myself as I would to a friend or lover. So this is what I want to talk a little bit about tonight.
When we are babies we are amazing and wonderful and our every move is celebrated (hopefully), as we grow we start to be told we are too much and too loud etc. We are conditioned to know our value in the world is about service and helping others get their needs met. Many of us start to shrink and define our place in the world within the message of taking up too much space. We are constantly judging ourselves though this broken lens. We start to dim our light because we receive the message we are simply “too much”.
Our challenge is for us to shift our thinking into expansiveness to see the things which we were once told were too much, as our true and honest strengths and virtues. Each of you is a unique and wonderful soul spirit with a special set of experiences only you have had.
I don’t mean toxic positivity, I mean sincerely being gentle with ourselves and allowing ourselves grace. Current science reports we have 12k-60k thoughts per day. 80% of these thoughts are negative, and 95% of them are repetitive, so just imagine if we could shift even a small % of those thoughts to positive, kind and loving. Speaking to ourselves as if we were a sweet child or a friend’s little one is a way to move into doing this.
For me, I started by making a conscious effort to not say anything to myself I wouldn’t say to my children-this was huge for me. As my consciousness increased I came to realize what a fucking asshole I am to myself-this led me to recognize it made sense I felt like shit because I was being so shitty to myself ALL the TIME!
So let’s see if we can soften into ourselves and move from a tight bud and allow the rose to unfold as we are kind and gentle to ourselves. I ask you to judge yourself less. Let’s ask ourselves to grind less, rest more and be kind first and foremost to ourselves. This allows us to show up in the world better for ourselves, our Sisters and our families. This is how we change the world!
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