Our global pandemic demands the very best of who we are and that requires radical self-care.
The stakes have never been higher.
The opportunities never grander.
My strategy has been to keep things simple.
Control what I can control and that’s myself.
My starting point is always my breath.
A healthy breathing pattern is characterized by these four qualities:
- DEEP (fills the tummy on the inhale, tummy pulls towards the spine on the exhale)
- SLOW ( 😉 the opposite of fast)
- QUIET (inaudible, feels peaceful)
- REGULAR (inhale and exhale are the same count)
Dial into how you are feeling.
Name it and consider writing it down.
If it’s an emotion that is fueling, rock on, you’re killing it.
If it’s a depleting emotion, initiate
Heart Focused Breathing (thank you HeartMath®)
Inhaling and exhaling envisioning the inhale and exhale to flow to and from the heart center, 360 degrees around your body.
Draw in a feeling of inner ease along with Heart Focused Breathing. This is called the Inner Ease Technique.
The HeartMath breathing techniques neutralize depleting emotions, improve coherence and calm the nervous system.
If you are feeling triggered ask yourself,
“What do I need to feel safe?”
Call upon your curiosity.
Underneath any point of suffering is a narrative on rewind in your thoughts.
What’s the narrative?
Write it down.
Upon honest inquiry you may discover a few realities regarding the narrative.
- It’s simply not true. Check out The Work by Byron Katie for more on this possibility. You would be surprised by how many of our thoughts cause suffering yet they are totally ungrounded in truth.
- Your nervous system is on overload. We are processing a lot. There are days when it is simply too much. Give yourself the knowing and grace to take breaks, rest, disconnect devices, find refuge in nature. Be careful not to inundate yourself with too much focus on Coronavirus. Consider reading news instead of listening or watching, check in on the news once per day, balance the stressful news with the stories of how people are making the best of the situation. *Resources below.
- You have unresolved emotional challenges and patterns that were present pre-crisis and they are now magnified due to the isolation and lockdown. If this is you, you are being invited to do the hard work of cleaning and clearing up these areas of your life.
The goodnews is that it’s possible and you are capable. I know you can because I’m a witness to my own emotional clean up work and to the work of my clients.
If your narrative is the result of unresolved emotional pain and suffering, do not allow the lie that you must delay dealing with it because of the coronavirus. The reality is that you’ve had an excuse for years and there is never a convenient time to change deeply held patterns or dysfunction.
The emotional pain you feel is an invitation to take action.
This is why you need radical self-care and a support system.
Do whatever the fuck you need to do to prop yourself up and start taking baby steps needed so that you can move forward. You probably cannot do this alone. Consider hiring someone or enlist the support of a friend so that you can create a strategy.
A winning strategy is going to be simple. Super simple. Inclusive of baby steps that are actionable. You’ll need to take one baby step everyday. I’m talking about micro movements that allow you to shift your beliefs and emotions. Little by little you will be moving in the direction towards honoring yourself and that’s going to relieve stress and improve emotional states.
Daily Self-Care Inquiry During the Pandemic:
Recognize how you are surviving.
What actions are you taking to self soothe. Write them down. This helps to create distance so you can objectively evaluate them.
If you feel great about your stratagies, by all means, share them with others.
If you don’t, you are going to have to balance compassion with discipline and change your actions.
LOVE>FEAR Start here.
Ask your wise inner teacher what she needs to feel safe?
Wait.
Listen.
Write down what you hear, it may not be audible. You may have sensations, feelings, words, images. Gather the information you receive and sit with it.
Ask your wise inner teacher what’s one thing you can do to honor what she needs and to support a feeling of safety.
Write it down and follow through with action.
We tend to have at least two to three things we like to do that calms our nervous system. For me, it’s cooking, reading, walking and yoga. If I feel stressed, I can choose one of these activities to neutralize a point of suffering. Sometimes when I ask what I need it’s totally different than what I had imagined.
Simply resting is another excellent option because we are processing a lot. Our nervous system has a limit of what it can hold. We must diffuse energy from our nervous system.
Energy is dispelled from our nervous system through movement:
- Exercise
- Dance
- Joint rolls (hips, shoulders, knees, ankles, elbows, hands, fingers, toes)
- Yoga
- Full body shake outs
- Energy holding poses (contact me or stay tuned)
Some people need rest to feel active. Options include audible meditations, sound healing, light therapy (In Light Wellness device, contact me to learn more) or a podcast.
A few favorites right now:
Oprah and Depak’s meditation app
Self-care is characterized by
- Self love
- Self compassion
- Grace towards oneself and others.
- Radical acceptance that whatever choices are made, they are made from the position of trying to feel better.
Self-care during the global pandemic is an inside game. It’s the keeping and care of your inner world that includes thoughts and feelings. From our inner being we will thrive or wilt because the pressure is forcing what’s inside to surface.
In loving yourself, you will discover a wellspring of unconditional love that will transform our collective cocooning into the wings of the butterfly.
“The light in me sees the light in you. “
*Good News Movement Instagram
John Krasinski Some Good News YouTube
P.s. Hi there. Me again. Did you notice there’s nothing in my post about essential oils or food as medicine or anything that’s external to you? True self-care is not about services outside yourself. All those external things are good but they serve the ego(personality) not the true self. This might be a paradigm shift or food for thought. I’d love to hear from you. What is self-care to you?
