worthiness

My current read is Brene Browns, ” The Gifts of Imperfection”.  So many amazing nuggets of wisdom and insight in all of her work!

The thing that is standing out to me today is this sentence, “If we want to experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.”

She goes on to explain that in her research it seems that this is the one defining concept that separates people who feel loved and have a sense of belonging, versus those who do not.

So where does that leave you?  And how do we increase our sense of belonging and our ability to receive love? We are so good at giving … we have an innate challenge, chip on our shoulder almost, that says: you cant out love me.  And we are often trying to prove that by out loving, out giving those around us. What drives that compulsion?  Im afriad it is a fear of not being enough. A doubt in our own worthiness.

So how do we shift that balance?  Investment.  We value things and people we have emotionally and energetically (and financially) invested in, correct?  And often we put ourselves last, willing to take the leftovers after everyone has been served.  What if we flip that mindset?  What if we took care of the Mamas needs first?  Never to say we should become selfish or neglect the needs of our loved ones, but to say we need to make the list of our loved ones.  Our worthiness comes from the INSIDE.  The value we place on ourselves is the value others acknowledge.

Lets begin.  Together. Here and now.  You carve out time for soccer practice and birthday outings?  Then you can carve out time to meditate or practice yoga.  Lets start making routine investments in our own self worth account.

You ARE worthy.

You ARE enough.

New Traffic Pattern

Recently, I was away for a little change of scenery.  The trip was perfect! Nice weather, good company, excellent food and wine …. who could ask for more?  So grateful for the chance to see and enjoy new things!

On the way, traffic was light, no major construction detours or delays but a sign in a construction are did catch my eye and stick with me.

The sign said, ” New traffic pattern; lane shift ahead”.

Resist the new shifts, the new patterns,  and we all know what happens …. people resist merging til the last second and that creates traffic jams and delays.  Sometimes it creates accidents.  The new traffic patterns are supposed to make things flow more efficiently and it takes a little getting used to but eventually, the new pattern becomes a habit and we grow comfortable with the new.

How true is this in our own lives?  My work as a whole, both massage and coaching, is really assitsing to create new patterns.  If we are in an old pattern of dysfunction … something that may have served us well at one time, but is now outdated and needs reconstruction, we end up in the same place over and over.  Creating new healthful patterns is work.  It takes getting used to… may even cause a traffic jam of emotions or an accident but we do get used to it, and find that even that newness becomes routine.

I like that the sign gave a clear heads up about what to expect.  Two parts… “new traffic pattern.  Lane shift ahead”.  Now, on the highway, we have no choice in the traffic pattern or the lane shift.  However we DO have a choice in our lives.  We can create the new pattern, but recognizing the patterns that are inefficient in our current situation and designing some lane shifts to allow an efficient flow.

Preaching to the choir, ladies. Believe me, i have my share of lanes to shift! and have been… I have been on a dedicated journey to self improvement… clearing blocks, removing inefficient patterns and simplifying … and you know what I find?  I have so much more room for joy and gratitude!

In her book,  “Daring Greatly”, Brene Brown shares that there seems to be a correlation between gratitude and happiness.  That people who express more gratitude have a more abiding sense of joy than people who express less gratitude.

So the first new traffic pattern, the first lane shift is to consciously turn our attention to what we DO have.  To be thankful for our health, our current body our relationships, this gratitude allows more room for joy, joy in turn allows for more gratitude and we develop a pattern of increasing joy and gratitude.

There is no upper limit … no ceiling to our gratitude except what we place there ourselves.  SO …. new traffic pattern …. expressing gratitude.  I would like to propose a three pronged approach to this building gratitude and joy campaign.

We need to acknowledge our own worth, our value to others,  and the joy in the world around us.  So my thought for developing a new pattern for the traffic of our thoughts is this:  3 things i am grateful for about ME…. physical, mental or emotional things I value in myself.  such as: Strong legs to carry me to work, or on a walk to increase my health; dedication to my improvement; my yoga practice. OK there are three things I value about myself for my own benefit and self care.  Now, three things that I value in myself that I share with others ( this is easier than finding value for self I think for most of us): Compassion; ability to listen; active deconstruction of any judgement i recognize.  Lastly, this is the easiest I would think … three things i am grateful for in the world around me:  my new move to downtown Mystic …. lovely and inspiring every day;  sunshine!; the highway system, enabling us to get to places far and near with relative ease.

Gratitude as a lifestyle will cause new traffic patterns to emerge, the lanes will shift, and your joy levels will increase dramatically!  Blessings this day, dear friends.  May your day be filled with small moments of increased gratitude and recognized joys!

Do you trust yourself?

An odd question …. do you trust yourself?

Do you trust yourself to make healthy, loving and affirming decisions for yourself?  We do trust ourselves to make safe and conscientious decisions and choices for our loved ones; why is it so strange to think about trusting ourselves about ourselves? We have all made choices that we look back on and think: the outcome would have been better if i had chosen differently. Somewhere along the line we agreed with a cultural or social concept out of fear, physical or fear of embarrassment, it triggered a stress response and we learned not to trust ourselves.  Even worse, we believed we were not worthy of loving approval.

We know in relationships trust is vital.  Trust is a core element of a healthy relationship with yourself as as well as anyone else in fact, it is the foundation for how deeply and wholly you are able to trust other people.  We need to select and develop a support group te allows us space to idendity the lies we accepted that we molded these habits of distrust around.

We are powerful, wise intuitive and worthy!  We deserve tp be in a relationship where we love and are loved …. and it starts with ourselves.

Our journey back into ourselves … back to a place where we try to impress no one, have no fear of judgement is a life long process.   The reality of loving the woman of our soul is going to take work, as all relationships do.  the work of our own healing journey and process is so worthwhile and will equip us to help other sisters on their healing journey.

Let’s begin by looking at our habits.  The habits that distract us from our unmet emotional needs and desires.  Our cravings point to the emotional source and once we identify them we can begin to change them.  Trust yourself to change out old habits of self sabotage for creative alternatives building healthy patterns.  You are worthy of feeling good, looking good and doing good!  This is your birthright: self love and s

Femme Journal

elf trust.

Women’s Wellness

What is women’s wellness?

We know that diet and exercise are crucial to our health; yet often our own nutrition or fitness is forgotten in the urgency of daily living.  Our lives are full and complicated, rich and busy!  Who has time for the gym or the yoga mat?  Yoga at home with kids, pets, friends and phones calling for your attention is hardly meditative.  Carving time out before or after work to hit the gym or get to a class makes meal planning even more tricky.

Women’s wellness is more than just fitness and nutrition.  It is  a lifestyle that supports and cultivates expansive well being in each area and relationship in a woman’s life …. beginning with our relationship with our self.

It is a balance between the physical needs an, clean diet and regular exercise, and our emotional and mental well being.

In her book, Daring Greatly, Brene Brown speaks about the difference between our “aspirational values” and our ” practical values”.  Our aspirational values are the ideals we believe in, support and hold dear but not necessarily things we actually incorporate into our daily life.  Practical values are our real time values.  The disconnect can cause anxiety and a lack of self trust.  If we aspire to practice yoga 5 days a week, but in the practical world are on the mat once a week we feel like we have let ourselves down.  More self bullying ensues.

How do we break that cycle? Brown says, “We don’t have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with action.”

Women’s wellness is a daily process of aligning our values with action for the betterment of ourselves.  Mental, emotional, physical aspects of our lives must be made a priority and tended to as we tend to someone we love.

Each of us is worthy of being cherished and supported, surrounded by love and encouragement.  We need to start with being our own best friend.  No more self bullying.  First step in the reprogramming our wellness plan: love yourself. Replace negative self talk with affirmative words, guilt free encouragement as you make choices for you as you would for someone you love.

Lifestyle transition

Where do you start?  Where do we begin to unravel where one stops and another begins?

Whether the transition is a break up, a child going away, a new career or something else the gap left by the newly missing pieces is a hole.  A hole that needs to be filled with something.  How do we take this opportunity to create a new lifestyle that incorporates things that are healthy for us, and allows us to create our new identity as well as feeling whole again.

This is a time for some soul searching. A time to discover what we have ignored for so long.  What goals and desires did we have that we forgot?  Do we still have those dreams and what new dreams have come to us?  Why haven’t we pursued them?

What habits fill our lives, take our time, money and energy keeping us from feeling that hole?  What is the self talk running on a continuous loop in our heads keeping us from making life affirming choices and building a better lifestyle?  Lack of self trust and self love sabotage and cripple us.

When we have put our goals, needs and desires on the back burner because we believed some one else was more deserving than ourselves, we reiterate to our minds and hearts: we are not worthy.  Then our choices and decisions are processed through that filter.

Its time to change the filter.

Its time to put ourselves first…. not to be selfish and narcissistic, but to treat ourselves like someone we love.  We need to be healthy and fulfilled in order to give soul nourishing love to others.  We must begin with ourselves.  We are worthy.  We are loved.  We are enough.    It’s time to revolutionize our mindset with positive love and nourishment for ourselves.

Where do we start?   With self care.

Self care in emotional, mental and physical ways.  For myself, that begins today on my yoga mat.  Time to strengthen and honor my body; quiet the mind; soothe the emotions.  I invite you to journey with me.  You are worthy of time and nourishment.  I invite you to be good to yourself today.

Namaste