Reflect, Review and Rewrite Your Self Love Issues
February, the month of Love is actually a wonderful time to reflect and review your issues surrounding LOVE, and not just Romantic Love!
In order to truly love another, we must first love ourselves! And a wonderful way to enhance the self-love journey is by going within ourselves and being with ourselves. Yes, I am going to dare say it: Meditation! There I said it! LOL!
If you’re anything like me, that word might conjure up a lot of negative things for you and/or trigger you. So, let me calm your poor triggered self down. Meditation doesn’t have to take hours of time and we can start out slowly and build up those muscles. I know, I know meditation was so hard for me in the beginning and spoiler alert: it’s still not the easiest thing for me to do because I always have so much going on that I’d prefer to do! But/and here’s what I’ve noticed over the years: when I get myself into the habit of meditating, life tends to suddenly flow easier, I have deeper insights into myself, I seem to be hooked up to my creative flow oh yay baby, so good, and I’m less likely to be a swirling dervish in my daily life and much less reactive to my sweet husband! Oh, just that?! LOL, Yes, that and so much more! Gosh, now I just want to go and meditate right this minute as I’m writing! And one other thing: it also makes my elimination system (also known as pooping) much more regular and I know I’m not alone….lots of my friends and patients tell me the same!
Well, I’m glad it makes you poop Ellen but you said this meditation thing was good for self-love….how does that work?
I’m so glad you asked! I know I can get off on tangents when I get excited! LOL! Ok, yes, back to the self-love! Here’s how it works! If you’re mind is anything like mine, it’s forever busy, busy, busy and you’re idea of relaxing is actually collapsing at the end of exhaustion ( Hmmmm, yes, I know, I know but I’m giving it to you straight!) then meditation will help you to do many things:
1) Truly slow your beautiful mind down
2) Teach you how to actually relax not just collapse, thank you very much!
3) Teach you how to soften and love on yourself. You see the act of actually taking time for yourself is an act of self-love. As you make time for your sweet self, you’ll begin to notice many things about yourself. For example, in the meditating state, you may notice how hard you are on yourself and you can choose anew and begin to be more gentle with yourself, you may notice how you pick on yourself or judge yourself and once again in this beautiful calmer state, you can choose anew rather than acting out of the memorized way of being ( if I may borrow an amazing comment/understanding from my incredible mentor/coach Nancy Carlstrom).
As you do this, day after day, week after week, you begin to come into contact with your beautiful heart, deepening your understanding of yourself and learn to love on yourself. AaaaaahH, yes!
Oh, I see now!
Awesome! So why not go ahead right now, put everything down and slowly, slowly begin to settle into yourself by closing your eyes and letting the world drop away from you now. Let yourself breathe into your dan tien (4 finger widths below your belly button) and breathe….and now even deeper. Let your mind rest on one word like, OM, Love, Amen. Just breathe in and think OMmmmmmm, or whatever word you have chosen. Or if you like numbers, you may count on the breath, 1, 2, 3. Or… Ommmmmmmm on the inhale and Ommmmmm on the exhale and just stay there now and enjoy for as long or as short as you like. Try to meditate like this for 5 minutes each morning before you begin your day and for 5 minutes at the end of your day. And, then each week, consider lengthening this by another 5 minutes. And, above all, enjoy breathing. It is free and it is life-giving. Life-loving. Self-loving. Aaaaaaaah!