I’m thrilled to share another luscious litany of tips today – from yet more passionate and inspiring women.
I’m not going to get all long-winded with my own story today – because I want to jump right into the poetry that is shared by my mentors and colleagues here.
But, before I do: We’ve got another fantastic Give Away Prize today!
Yesterday Cigdem Kobu gave away the A Year With Myself Full Adventure Kit to a commenter or Tweeter that will be picked at random.
Today Angela Artemis will give away her new (and amazing) audio meditation program, The Reawakening.
If you’ve been following these self-care nuggets over the past couple of days you’ve surely noticed how often meditation is mentioned as pathway to self-nurturing and emotional well-being.
But, for many of us, meditation remains elusive. How to find the time? And when and if we do, how to quiet that mind chatter and just focus on the stillness?
If you haven’t meditated much before – or even if you have – The Reawakening is just the nudge you need to get into that peaceful place in your own mind.
Each guided meditation is only 10 minutes or thereabouts – so not so hard to squeeze into a busy day!
I recently invested in this set of guided meditations in mp3 format (which by the way comes with a slew of bonuses, including audio interviews and downloads of tracks of binaural beats to enhance a deep meditative state). I’ve been using them regularly to enhance my own morning practice.
It was easy – just downloaded them and then put them on my iPhone (but any mp3 player would work.)
The Reawakening package includes a set of 10 professionally recorded guided meditations. three e-books and a guided meditation instruction manual. What a deal for just $27! Find out more here.
Wanna win one for yourself? Read on to find out how – and to get Angela’s own take on using meditation as a tool for exquisite self-care.
(HInt: once again it involves sharing the self-care love, and sharing your own thoughts on this hot topic)
Once again I’ve got some amazing women to introduce you to today. Some of these self-care thoughts are like little prose poems in their own right.
Enjoy!
My favorite self-care activities are landscaping and sailing.
Moving dirt doesn’t sound like a self-care routine, does it? I’m not an exerciser. Exercise is boring. But ask me to double dig a huge garden, and watch an hour go by. I love it. I love the ache in my shoulders and the way my arms respond to the weight of the dirt.
I love the proprioception, how each part of my body takes notice of the whole.
Sailing is similar. I’m in my body, moving it, raising sails, tacking and jibing, leaning into the boat as it heels. I am sensing something I can’t see. I am working with the wind to get somewhere. It blows where it wants. I am not in control of it, but I can use it to get where I need to be. Some days, it’s easier than others (of course). But always, I am moving in context to this something that I can neither see or control.
In landscaping, I am sensing something I can’t see, as well. I am sensing growth. There are subtle signs amongst my garden’s happy (and not so happy) constituents. I look to see who is growing, who is crowded, who has been choked by the ivy, who has jumped the bed. All my plants are who’s.
How does this keep me aligned?
Both of these activities require total presence. They bring me deep into my body, and they help me feel part of all that is.
And then when I go inside and take a hot shower, and check out my shoulders in the mirror, I remember that I can be like the wind. That people use my words and thoughts and energy to move their boats, (some days, it’s easier than others). I can be like the soil. People can use the grounding of my business strategies to sow and reap. I help others take note, sense growth, see subtle signs, to be part of the moving and the growing that is our birthright.
I am part of this greater thing, and at the same time, I am that thing, the same way I am boat and wind and muscle and dirt and plant and sunshine.
Bridget Pilloud is a writer, speaker, teacher and consultant. She helps folks make positive changes in their personal lives, as well as their work lives. She loves dogs, cookies, her kids, her partner and the crazy-prosperous soil of Oregon. You can find her at http://www.intuitivebridge.com and http://www.chezbridget.com and http://www.shopatthebridge.com. On twitter, she’s @intuitivebridge
Jt Clough, Coach, Dog Whisperer,
Blogger at Big Island Dog
I practice self care most days of the week with a connection to the ocean and the sand. I outrigger paddle three days a week. Many of those days I see and swim with dolphins.
I take my journal to the beach and write often. The amazing healing powers of the ocean and the sand connect me with my passion to live my life in Hawaii, a dream come true, meet my own needs with exercise and rest, needs of my life partner and meet the needs of others through my work. I love to work one on one with others by keeping my own needs and dreams aligned.
We all benefit living healthy, happy, vibrant lives.
Dance. To me, there is nothing more self-caring than to express the soul by moving the body to the rhythms that beat the heart of life.
Dance. It isn’t a routine…it is anything but. Dance is my practice, my religion, my love and my passion.
When I move, I pray…to that which moves us all, and to that which is the source from which all creation flows. I am a creativity catalyst. I wake people up to the wild creative spark and the profoundly human leader within, and to the joy that comes when we move and live the love that brought us into being.
Dawn Barclay, Firewalker, Coach at Living Moxie
I wish I had something profound for you and your readers, that I could list for you a beautiful, inspirational and highly effective self-care routine, but I don’t have a favorite.
In fact, I don’t like routines for my own self care. For me the routine of solely saying ‘I matter’, recognising that I need to ask myself ‘What do I need right now?’ is just as important as pursuing a dream.
To me the word passion is not something I ‘do’, passion is pure energy that drives the purpose, which includes the dreams. In order for me to stay in alignment to that energy it’s fun, play, laughter, relationships, connection, coffee, cake and dogs! Pretty simple really. Love.
I find strength in the seasons, not just their visual changes, but their symbolic ones. In winter, I go within to incubate and plan. In spring and summer, I plant creative seeds and tend their growth. In fall, I harvest ideas and prepare for the next cycle. My projects don’t grow in leaps and bounds, but in a quiet spiral.
My blog, Later Bloomers, has followed this cycle. Last year, I didn’t blog much through winter, considered new options in spring, enrolled in Jennifer Louden‘s spectacular writing workshop in July, which, by November, gave me the impetus to self-publish. The book has done well and I’m excited about the next stage.
These days, I first brew a cup of tea, then tend the two tomato plants that I thought had died over winter. They gave me no fruit last year, but I didn’t have the heart to pull them out. I watered them sporadically, but the rain probably saved them. And now they’ve spread 30 feet down the side of my urban apartment building. Each day, a half-dozen tomatoes ripen.
“Those tomatoes are out-of-control,” my neighbor commented.
“Nope,” I replied, as I placed several in her hand. “They’re late bloomers celebrating their hard-earned spring. Enjoy.”
I wish the same for all of us.
Ronna Detrick, Truth-Teller. Prophet. Hope-er. Speaker. Writer.
I wish I could tell you that I am good at this; that I intentionally, purposefully, and consistently stop to take care of myself. I do not. Other than sleep, a monthly massage, and fabulous time with women who amaze and support me.
That said, I stay connected to my passion by doing the work of what I love! I keep writing – whether people jump up and cheer, or not. I keep speaking – whether people pay me, or not. And I keep hoping – tenaciously and unswervingly – on behalf of my business and its success, but more, on behalf of what I believe I have to offer the world. Even in my most dispassionate places – those days when I am exhausted and defeated – this hope and endless belief doesn’t wane. And my awareness of this, more than anything else, is what helps me to press on.
I.Just.Keep.Doing.What.I.Love. No matter what. Self-care? That would be awesome, wouldn’t it?
Since being on the road for a year and now living in France, I don’t have as many opportunities to enjoy a lot of the self-care routines I used to enjoy when I lived in the suburbs of California. So now I find self-care in the every day things that push my boundaries. In some ways these are more satisfying because those times of self care are hard to come by.
For instance, I have to cook for my family at least once a day so I turn that mundane event into a self-care activity by cooking something exotic or NEW from other cultures. Our dinners consist of Korean, Jamaican, Greek, Chinese, or Thai food, just to name a few.
Cooking something new every night makes dinner interesting for me and my family and gives us something to talk. But most of all it lets me experiment, which nourishes my creative side. Too add to my self care while frying veggies or chopping herbs, I listen to soothing music or interesting audio books. Other times, my husband or daughter joins me. No matter what, dinner is quite an even for us and we never do NOT sit together. It’s our time to connect as a family and that nourishes me in so many ways.
Thanks to food, I get a chance to relax, connect with my family and be creative not to mention feed my family. What could be better than that?
El Edwards, Designer. Entrepreneur. Charity Founder.
The first thing to go when stuff goes bonkers – and therefore the most important thing I have to do for my own sanity and self-care – is sleep! It was only after I gave up caffeine for Lent that I realised just how much my body is dependent on good quality rest.
The withdrawal headaches persuaded me to continue on my reduced-caffeine quest after Easter and it was a two day crash (tears, tantrums, the works!) after I’d ignored my tiredness and pushed through that finally made me see just how important rest is. Without enough rest, I start doubting myself, my vision for the business, even my ability to maintain conversation without bursting into tears!
When well rested, life feels like sunshine and it becomes easier to know exactly what to do next to move stuff forward.
Not surprisingly, I love books and ideas and journals and words and, oddly, office supplies. I have this lovely little space all set up in my home office with a day bed and fluffy pillows and whatnot.
When I need a retreat, I take myself to the office supply store and buy new colored pens and papers and journals. And then I check out the book store and buy a new book or two and some puzzle books and such. And then, I tuck myself into my day bed with all my new stuff and just start drawing my dreams and ideas and thought bubbles and whatnots.
You have to light a candle, too. One that smells really great. In a few hours I’m as good as gold.
Padma Maxwell, Coach, Entrepreneur. Philanthropist. Adventurer. Speaker. Writer.
I generally wake-up in the morning and think, “Will I be successful today?”
Before I jump into my to-do lists, I play a self-recorded affirmation reminding me that I am a shining star and all I have to do is show up to radiate my gift in the world and all support will be provided. I do this in a grassy field, early mornings, as much as possible. This helps me let go of self-judgment and know that I did everything I could that day by showing up brightly in my life, and whatever I didn’t accomplish that day, must have been meant for another day!
Yoga and meditation have been my favorite self-care practices for the past decade. They have cured my “bad back” and allowed me to turn inwardly and learn so much about myself and others.
I practice for about 45 minutes most days (35 minutes of yoga followed by 10-15 minutes of meditation). I actually put a daily reminder to practice on my calendar that pops up, just in case I get too wrapped up in ‘getting things done.’ When my body is feeling tight and out of sorts, when I need to calm my mind to focus, if I want to find the answer to a problem or think through how I want to approach something I want to write, I go to my yoga practice.
It helps me to flush away all the noise that’s getting in my way, get quiet, be present and focus on what’s important and what makes me happy. And it’s wonderful that it’s free and I can do it anywhere, even with my little kids crawling on me.
Jackie Walker, Relationship Coach
When I feel out of sorts or out of alignment with all that is, I’m unable to connect with myself or others, create or be as heartfelt as usual.
When that happens, I do these simple things – I shut down the computer, I drink more water, eat protein, sleep more and I go for walks. They all work in varying ways, the most important change I notice is they allow me to come back to the moment where I can hear and respect what my body is telling me it needs more of.
I’m passionate about meditation because it works! I’ve been meditating for half my life now and it is still the single most important thing I do for myself each day. Honestly, I believe we should be teaching it in public schools but…that’s a whole other conversation.
Meditating first thing in the morning sets the tone for my entire day. I spend around 20-30 minutes each morning in deep contemplation and gratitude. Quieting my mind allows me to connect to the calm center of my being where there is only love, joy, health, vitality and creativity. Spending time there each day nourishes my body, mind and soul and restores me to truth of who I am at my core.
While sitting in the silence all the racing thoughts in my mind to recede from my awareness. I feel a calm descend over me when steeping myself in this beautiful silence -and then amid the silence amazingly enough, answers arise! I am directed and inspired by ideas that appear in my consciousness during this time and they keep me aligned with my dream.
It’s a simple process but astounding in its effectiveness. Empty the mind each day and allow an intelligence that is greater than you are to fill it back up with creatively inspired solutions that will lead you to actualize your purpose and make your dreams a reality.”
If all of these self-care stories and ideas are getting you inspired, you won’t want to miss out on the first two installments of this series:
http://www.saraholeary.net/self-care-secrets-from-13-wise-and-empowered-women/
http://www.saraholeary.net/13-more-powerful-self-care-ideas-a-give-away/
Let’s keep the self-care sharing alive! Tell us in the comment section what YOU like to do to stay nurtured and revitalized.
Your comment gets you an entry into today’s Give-Away contest. You could win your own set of The Reawakening guided meditations with Angela Artemis and Steve Atchison!
You can also leave a comment telling us why you want to win this
Here’s another way to win: Share this post with a Tweet. Be sure to include @saraholeary in your tweet, so I know to put your name in the drawing. Example: “I just entered to win a set of @angelaartemis guided meditations from @saraholeary at Holistic Hot Sauce”
Each tweet or comment will get you another entry!
What are you waiting for? Let’s hear about your special self-care sauce!
And be sure to stop back over at Holistic Hot Sauce tomorrow for the final installment of the self-care series. More vignettes and tips plus a very special herbal give-away!
Till then!