Self-Care

What you say to yourself is more important than what others say to you or about  you.  No one knows you and understands you like you do. You spend all your time with you. You know where you have come from and where you would like to go. You are your best cheerleader and your best advocate. You can use your unique position to your advantage….or not.

Sadly, you are not always kind to you. Sometimes you yell at you. Sometimes you call you names. Sometimes you even swear at you. This does not help you. It only hurts you. Deeply. Very deeply.

You may be thinking “Well, someone has to tell the truth. Someone needs to point out the mistakes.” But really, you know the truth. You know when you have made a mistake. Yelling at yourself only adds insult to injury. Feeling stupid never helps anyone heal.

Instead, treat yourself like you would a good friend or family member. What would you say to him or her? Is there a way to look at bad judgment and mistakes and acknowledge them without going down the road of self-hatred? To take it as a hard lesson learned, your part in the drama, and use it as a learning experience from which you will recover? Self-reflect, but in a caring and concerned way toward yourself.

Then take the next step. Thoughts, speech, and actions are all intimately related. Recognizing that is step one. Think about and talk about what direction you would like you to go. What would be good for you. Start moving in that direction – one step at a time.

Think about your life and talk to yourself in a positive manner. Use affirmations. A lot. Affirmations are assertions of who you are and what you want in life. They send out your message to the universe that this is who I am and this is where I am headed. They are always written and said in the present tense.

I am attaching an article from HuffPost by Dr. Carmen Harra about the life affirming power of affirmations. She gives a list of 35 affirmations to pick from, but she also encourages you to write you own. Pick some. Think them. Speak them. Act on them. You will grow and shine. You know it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-carmen-harra/affirmations_b_3527028.html

Don’t dwell in the House of Whatever. I spent some time there last week. And let me tell you, it can be a nasty place. Depressing. Dark and dusty. It’s hard to breathe the air in there. You don’t realize how stifling it is until you step outside. It takes a few breaths to clear your lungs. To wipe the soot from your eyes. And to remember what it’s like outside the house.

You see the House of Whatever is a dangerous place to live. Very dangerous. We all visit there from time to time. We might stick a toe in or peek our head around the corner. Sometimes we even step inside. Might sit down for awhile. But do not linger. Can’t linger. Even if it’s intoxicating for a split second. Feel it and then back away. Slowly. With determination (because the other people in there, they won’t want you to leave).

I believe that the House of Whatever is the house of complacency. “Whatever” is a bad place to be because “whatever” leads to complacency. And complacency belies despair. Deep despair. Giving up. The kind that is very hard to come back from.

If you are reading this, you likely consider yourself a sensitive person. You feel things deeply – all emotions deeply – including despair. It’s okay to feel all of your feelings. But when you hit despair, look for the nearest life jacket or outstretched hand to pull you back before you drown. Your life jacket may be another person, a pet, a prayer, a walk, a song, a mantra, etc.

You can feel deep sadness and move through it without vacationing in the House of Despair. Sadness and disappointment can feel overwhelming at times, but an empath will move through it and learn from having had the experience. We learn more compassion and understanding of ourselves and of others.

In the House of Whatever, no one cares anymore about anything. There is no compassion. There is no caring. It is a dead place. We are compassionate. We are caring. We choose connection. We choose vibrancy. We choose light.

Be an escape artist. For a day. Or an hour. Or five minutes. To master the art of the escape, you need only three things: desire, vision, and opportunity. Escape artists are half methodical thinkers and half carpe diem joyriders. You can be both to take regular getaways from the ties that bind you.

Don’t get me wrong – I like my life. In fact, I love much about my life. But we humans carry a lot of stress and a lot of responsibility, and sometimes we need a break from the weight of it. A short break is a mini-vacation. Sometimes a mini mini-vacation. With a little planning and fortitude, your escape retreat time will work.

Empaths especially need escape time from others – even from those whom we love. This is no reflection on them or on us. We just need it. Why?

1. To think our own thoughts (without interruption).
2. To feel our own feelings (without intrusion of other’s feelings).
3. To come and go as we please (literally).

When my children were very young, I had two hours a week to myself due to an overlap in scheduling. Two hours off duty from my job and from parenting. Those two hours were precious, and I made the most of them. They were my mini-escape and my mini-vacation where I could just think and feel and go and be. Now that they are older, I recently attended an overnight conference. I made sure to plan “escape” time and enjoyed some brisk walks and a movie that took me far away from home.

I encourage you to plan an escape and get some time away from all others. You will return brighter and better for your time away. It’s a way to protect and grow your own little inner light so that when you return, you can shine it all the more brightly on others.

“I’m doing the best with what I got,” my sister often says. But she doesn’t stop there. She tries to make “what she got” a little bit better. You can too. One way to make “what you got” a little bit better is by doing yoga on a regular basis. It makes “what you got” stronger, more flexible and more stable. Yoga can help bring balance to your body and to your life, and it can literally change the way that you breathe.

You have one body. You were born with it, but it also carries your life history. Your body is a living combination of nature and nurture. Slightly crooked backs run in my family, only mine is more crooked than slightly. Yoga has taught me to accept my back but also to help it. I can’t make my spine straighter, but I can give it more flexibility and stability. And I can learn to breathe more calmly while I do it.

All forms of yoga focus on mind, body, and spirit, but yoga classes and teachers can vary widely. I encourage you to investigate before committing. Many classes teach Hatha yoga, and one form of Hatha yoga is Iyengar. I like this type of yoga because it is gentle. Iyengar yoga focuses on alignment, postures, and breath control. It is for all body types and all ages, and it lends itself as yoga therapy. Instructors will talk you through the breathing and the poses and give you blankets, pillows, or straps to assist you. Once you learn the basics, you can also practice yoga at home via DVD or on line videos.

Yoga also helps ground me – and grounding can be a challenge for empaths. By starting my day with yoga, I feel connected to the earth and to myself. My energy feels balanced, my breathing is low and steady, and my spine has gotten the encouragement it needs to meet the many demands of my day.

The closing words from Rodney Yee (accompanied by soft music and scenic ocean waves) on his AM Yoga DVD summarize why I get up early to start my day with yoga practice.  “Begin each and every day with openness and peace.” I wish the same for you. Namaste.

It might sound strange, but sometimes we forget to relax. Really. No kidding. We don’t schedule relaxing time into our days. (Have you ever written “relax” on your to do list? No, I didn’t think so.) And by the way, collapsing at the end of the day is not the same as relaxing.

Relaxing takes intention. We relax with focused intention. We choose to take time just for ourselves that will help replenish our depleted energy.

Empaths especially get depleted because we absorb other people’s energy, and our own emotions are often very intense. By the end of the day, our emotional cup is overflowing. Imagine a cup under a running faucet. You are the cup which can hold water easily. But the tap doesn’t get turned off and the emotional waterfall keeps on coming. Empaths can’t turn it off, but we can step out of the waterfall and dry off in the sun of relaxation.

So what does relaxation look like for you? Relaxing takes many forms, and you need to find which relaxing activities are enjoyable and restorative and doable for you. Here is some simple advice and a list from au.reachout.com/ways-to-relax:

“How to chill out

There are a lot of different things you can do to relax and chill out. A lot of forms of relaxation, like walking and sitting quietly, are really simple, easy to do, and don’t take much time. Others require more discipline and some training. Everyone will find some strategies for relaxation work better than others. The best thing to do is try out some of the suggestions below and make the ones that best fit your lifestyle a regular habit.

Some relaxation activities include:
Going for a walk
Taking some time out and really focussing on what’s happening around you
Listening to quiet and relaxing music, which impacts your heart rate
Going fishing
Playing your favourite sport
Taking a bath
Going to a movie or watching a DVD
Focussing your attention on a puzzle
Reading a book
Learning yoga or meditation
Practicing meditation”

When you take time to relax, your life will be better – for you and for those around you. Just do it.

Digital media, like empathy, is a gift. And like empathy, depending on how you channel this gift will determine if it uplifts you or crushes you. You, dear empath, have a say in this. You can make wise choices for the good of yourself and the good of others.

Digital media is wide-reaching. If you don’t make any digital media choices, and let everything in, it will crush your spirit….again….and again….and again. Empaths get emotional overload more easily than others, so I encourage you to filter your experience.

Digital media connects us as never before, and the joy is that you get to pick the connections! You pick what goes on your Facebook page, and what other FB pages you want to follow. You pick what you will tweet and what twitter accounts you will follow. You get to control your Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest accounts. You decide who you will email and for what purpose. You choose what to browse. You decide what emails to open and which ones to delete. Do you see where I am going with this?

Make wise choices. Take care of your emotional health with the click of an add or delete. Don’t let digital media happen to you, harness it for the greater good of your spirit and the spirit of others.

Some examples from my life – I liked the National Parks Facebook page so that I can see beautiful pictures of nature show up daily on my personal FB page. I have handpicked sites to regularly show up on my digital media sources to further educate and enlighten me in my specific areas of interest. I can follow my favorite musicians and their tours. My sister and I have never been closer because of texting – sharing our lives is easier. And then there’s FaceTime and Google Hangout. I am bringing uplifting connections to me on a regular basis, and now I am able to share these images and words with others because of digital media. I am taking care of my emotional health and encouraging you to do the same.

We can be grateful that beliefs that we feel passionate about and can learn more about are so easily accessible. Digital connections can fill you up without overwhelming you. Connections are what being an empath is all about. Click on.

Empaths seek openness, peace, and connection. Cruel people encourage inequality, violence, and rift. Empathy  and cruelty are polar opposites. Both are forces in the world, yet I am deeply saddened that cruelty is gaining strength of late.

We have never been so connected globally as we are now. By connected, I mean wired. News media,  social media, and entertainment media are accessible in a click. Information abounds. Yet these connections are giving rise to a lot of horror. And this horror can visually come right into our homes. Images that we are presented with get burned into our brains forever. Some people can handle seeing it without upset. But for empaths, the inhumanity that we see feels soul crushing.

News media could be a force for making global connections and for increasing understanding of the peoples of the world. Instead, news stories focus on violence and hatred these days. The rift between the haves and have-nots is quickly widening, and some talking heads are pushing it along. We commonly are presented with stories of murder and torture. We commonly are presented with stories of people who lie, cheat, and steal, and depending on who they are, it may or may not be okay to do so. I have stopped watching news on TV and instead read news from a few sources.

Social media is a force for making connections on a more personal level with people from all over the world who share your interests. This is a good thing, right? Can be. Yet many people are using this outlet to spread fear and hatred. I love the connection of Facebook, but I have blocked those who post on the horrific. Their energy doesn’t get to intrude onto my page at will.

Entertainment media has gone heavily in the direction of cruelty too. Try not watching any murder shows during primetime, and there is not much left. TV and films glamorize murder with carefully posed corpses and beautiful investigators. Murder is not glamorous. Ever. I’ve stopped letting these images literally bleed into my living room.

You do not have to feed the cruelty monster. This is one thing, empaths, that you do not have to nurture. Block it from your presence. Protect your light. Uplifting and enlightening media sources do exist. In fact, they abound. Choose them. Give your energy to them. Grow the light.

Go, go, go, collapse. Sound familiar? I’m in the cycle now on the collapse end and wondering how I got here once again. Or maybe I know. Kind of. Empaths have broad shoulders. We can bear a lot and we can carry a lot for ourselves and for others. But everyone has a breaking point, the point when your body tells you, “No, not today you’re not.” Sickness grabs your attention like no other.

I used to curse being sick because it stopped me from doing the things that I needed to do. The things that HAD to get done. The things that no one else was going to do. Guess what? The world keeps on turning and disaster does not strike when you are laid up in bed for a few days.

A wise man told me that sickness is your body’s way of forcing you to slow down. Previously, I considered sickness as an impediment to getting things done. He was telling me that sickness has a purpose all its own, and that I needed to listen to it. It was forcing my hand.

So I have accepted that when I get sick, my body is telling me that I am taking on too much and that I need a break. I need to take care of myself and let others take care of me. This sounds obvious, but not so to an empath. We are often the caregivers for others, and we feel that we are failing if we need to take time off. We will helpfully plow along until we literally can’t. It’s an oft repeated line that bears repeating here – “You can’t take care of others unless you take care of yourself.”

When you are sick you need to change the expectations for yourself until you are better. Rest is the best medicine, so take it, and take a lot of it. Give yourself the same caring advice that you would give a sick friend. Although it is hard for an empath to do, ask for help. Others (including those who love you) are not going to just know what to do and step in. Tell them what you need and ask for help.

Rest and recover. That’s my current mantra. And when I am impatient with myself, I warn myself of the mantra’s polar opposite. No rest, no recover. Listen to your body.

Empaths handle emotion by letting it move through them. You feel the emotion deeply and wholly. The emotions move through you like a big wave. You cannot speed it up or slow it down. It is a force all its own. If you try to push it down, it only gains strength. If you push it down hard, it will come back with a frightening force.

Allow yourself to feel your emotions deeply, and ignore those around you who tell you not to. You will not “get over it” until it gets over you. This is hard to explain to people who are not empaths because they don’t experience the emotion with the intensity that we do. They don’t understand that it is physically and emotionally impossible for an empath to shut off a feeling, and that trying to tamp it down is self-destructive.

This doesn’t mean that we walk around emotional messes most of the time. We don’t. Our emotions may swing more drastically than others and be more dramatic. They run deep. Deep sorrow. Deep joy. Deep empathy.

Let the wave run through you. Do what you need to do to let that happen. I listen to very loud music. I separate myself to cry in peace. I take long walks. I pray for strength. You may do these things too, or you may release your emotions in other ways. Do what works for you and helps the wave of emotion pass without turning into a tsunami.

We are susceptible to the overwhelming emotions of those around us, so we may need to be careful with where we physically go and limit time spent with certain people. This is self-protective. Like me, you may have had to learn this the hard way. I have had some very emotionally unstable friends who liked to hang out with me a lot. Because I took some of their pain away. Literally. This is debilitating. It took me years to learn to set boundaries, and I am still learning.

If I could, I wouldn’t change being an empath. I like being this way. You get to walk the world with a certain awakening to what is around you. There is a perfect joy to feeling so connected to those you are with and to your surroundings. Choose where and who you want to spend time with. Feed your empathic soul. Focus on that joy and your light.

If you don’t take time to yourself – alone and in a separate space from anyone else – you may feel like a used up sponge at the end of the day. This is where an ounce of emotional prevention is worth a pound of exhaustion. Make time for yourself to be by yourself.

As an empath by nature, you at least sense, and often absorb, the energies of others around you. It may feel like their energy and needs override yours. You may forget that you even have any of your own. It’s the way we walk through the world. It is so normal to us to empathize and feel what others are feeling that we sometimes forget to take a break from it.

I am your reminder today. Take a break! Physically separate yourself to restore yourself. I know, you may say, “I can’t….I don’t have time…. I have kids to take care of…. I have a demanding job…. It’s not realistic.” I know. I’m telling you to do it anyway.

I’ve learned some ways over the years to make small restorative moments of alone time happen. Here are some suggestions that can take as little as 5 minutes.  At home, you can go into the bathroom. It’s the most alone place in the house. I have a little step stool in there that I sit on for few minutes when I need a break. You can go to an empty bedroom or any room in your home that spans your height. It’s okay to close the door. Lie down on the floor on your back. Put one hand on your heart and one hand on your pelvic belly. Breathe from your belly. This will help balance YOUR energy. At work, can you go to your car for a few minutes at lunch? Close your eyes, listen to the quiet, and breathe. During the day, can you take a short walk outside, or can you sit on the front porch by yourself? Think about it. What else do you do or can you do in small amounts of time to restore yourself and reclaim your own energy throughout the day?

Likely, no one is going to give you the gift of alone time….unless you ask for it. Ask. You are worth it. No one wants to personify the used up sponge at day’s end.