Spoonful of Self Care - New Year, New You Resolution Journal Exercise
The mind is the questioner and the heart is the answerer. The heart, our soul's chamber, is the connection to our higher self. It provides us with insight into what we can bring into or remove from our life that will provide us a path with balance, gentleness, and intelligent ways to ultimately create and experience your highest potential and most extraordinaire journey. It's that feeling to get outside more, to try something out of your comfort zone(you secretly always wanted to do), to leave that unhealthy relationship(even if it scares the shit out of you), to change careers that align with your deepest passion(letting go of fear of lack of money or judgement from others), to drink more water, to rest, to forgive(regardless if you received an apology).
What will prevent us from acting upon this divine intelligence is our learned information from social conditioning's a reaction of the egoic-mind the part of us which can be controlling, fearful, worry-some, and judgmental reacting from previous experiences others shared with us and that of our own. Have you ever noticed how you can expect or assume the absolute worst about a situation and after the scenario say to self, "Well, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be," took on an idea of a person or place based off someone else's experience, and/or stopped yourself from trying something new out of fear of failing, or worrying what others will think?
I can answer yes to all of them. I've been that girl to not speak up because well they aren't going to hear me anyways, refrained from standing up for myself out of fear of their reaction, crippled myself with worry and fear over a situation only to realize later...that wasn't so bad, assumed how others are thinking about me because I'd been hurt in the past, took on an idea about someone who I never took the time to get to know, judged others from their past actions, held grudges...be damned if I validate their actions with forgiveness. What resulted from living out of this place of learned information was a very insecure, anxiety-ridden, reactive, lacking in a deeper level of understanding, and very lost version of myself. After living from this space for years it eventually took it's toll; leaky gut syndrome, chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression, calcification on my back, reactive arthritis, insomnia, trust issues, and at my lowest of lows standing in my kitchen holding a knife toward my heart looking my Mother square in the eye telling her I wanted to end it all. Point, I've been there trapped in the fear hamster wheel.
This part of our mind should be reserved for life or death situations but it has flowed over into areas of our life less beneficial, stunting our growth, contributing to illness, anxiety, and depression etc. I use to stop myself from speaking my truth, standing my ground, trying things I've always wanted to because in the past I got hurt, judged, or 'failed'. I took my past experiences and expected or assumed anything triggering that learned information and initial heartbreak would result with similar feelings.
This is the training I speak of, we are reacting from the egoic-mind. It is here to protect us and certainly deserves it's gratitude for doing so. This is not a, "Fuck the ego blog" quite the contrary actually it is a retraining of the ego. An integration of the egoic-mind with our soul's chamber the heart, a connection between mind-body. When the egoic-mind is in the driver seat we tend to think the best way to our destination is straight from point a to b, cut and dry but what we are missing out on is the soul's journey and a myriad of opportunities to grow and connect. We block ourselves by thinking or wanting something or someone has to be a certain way, closing the doors to all the other options that can bring about beautiful blessings and lessons. Additionally, we create our own struggles, aches, pains, illnesses, anxiety, depression and settle for a life that is not of our highest potential or of the most extraordinaire.
With Christmas and the New Year approaching we receive and exchange presents and some begin to set resolutions. As a present to yourself I invite you to join me in allowing your heart to take the drivers seat, to set a resolution to try new things you normally wouldn't out of fear, to practice forgiveness for yourself and those who've harmed you intentionally and non-intentionally through thought, word, and deed, and to listen to the guidance from your higher self acting upon it.
Journal Exercise:
Write at the top of a sheet of paper, What should I be conscious of that will bring me the gentlest and most amazing New Year?
•Find a comfortable seat
•Soften and close your eyes
•Place hands left over right on heart
•Take a few deep, slow belly breaths
•Ask yourself the written question
Write down any instant knowings, feelings, thoughts, ideas that come to you. Warning the trained egoic-mind will quickly jump in...you're making this up, you could never do that, that's a coincidence, this is stupid....notice it's attempts to 'protect you' and keep you in your comfort zones but simply state, "Thank you for helping me thus far in my life, but I am giving the drivers seat to the more intelligent and intuitive guidance of my heart for this is my best friend, my helper, my teacher, my higher self." Retraining will take our willingness to do so, patience, compassion and practice for we've allowed it to rule the roost for quite sometime, but if you can at all relate to some of what I went through and suffer the same from allowing ourselves to live from this head space I promise you my whole life has changed when I became conscious of and switched who was the driving force behind it.
I wish each and everyone of you freedom, gentleness, joy, and a year full happiness,
Namastacey (~*~)