Self Love Adventure: March 2010 Archives

Okay, maybe I AM addicted to 40-day self love practices, but hey, there are way worse things to be addicted to! This addiction actually brings me more LOVE vs. less, so I say, let's keep the 40-day self-love practices going all year long.

I am just coming off of a 40-day self-love practice of Receiving, and the one that preceded that was the 40-day Taking Care of ME practice that many of you have been doing the last 40 days. We started on Feb 13th and finished yesterday, March 25th by everyday waking up and asking ourselves, 'What do I need to do to take care of ME today?"

So what is next? When I asked this question I got inspired by two things... 1. Last year, one of five 2009 themes was "My body is my moving temple." I spent a whole year trying to bring that into reality and ended the year with a B-.  I want more! And 2. At the Madly in Love with ME Celebration on February 13th, I asked two transformational artists to perform something that embodied the energy of My Body Is My Temple, so that women could literally FEEL what that would be like. My friend Kalila danced an amazing temple dance, and Lone Morch created this amazing movie, My Body As Temple which you should so check out on our you tube channel.

This all leads me and you! to

the "My Body is My Temple" 40-day Self Love Practice

which is the perfect practice to do now! We just celebrated Spring Equinox last weekend which is all about renewing and replenishing. Spring is a time to start shedding all that extra energy we were holding on to to keep us warm and cozy during the Winter months. In the Ayurvedic tradition it's one of the main times to do a full body cleanse. And lets face it, Spring is the time right before bathing suit season, so many of us may have our bodies on our minds.

My relationship with my body has never been my strongest relationship. For me it's not that I hate her, it's that I forget about her. Like I can go months without looking at my toes, feeling my calf or noticing that I have this appendage called an arm. I take my body for granted, as if she is always going to be there to be the workhorse I have always expected her to be. As an achiever I have driven her past the brink of exhaustion on many occasions to 'get the job done' and the truth is that I have treated her more like a piece of machinery at my beck and call than as the temple that she deserves to be treated as.

The other truth is that without her, I would be nothing. I don't exist on this planet without her. My spirit needs this form to be on this earth. None of the passions, missions, dreams I have can be accomplished without her. And although I like to think that I am in charge of her, the truth is that very quickly, if I don't adore her the way a temple deserves to be adored, she will be in charge of me, and I won't be able to do a darn thing about it.

Just think about any time you didn't feel good physically -- from a canker sore to a cold to a much more serious condition - you were at the mercy of your body, and the only way to change the situation was to treat her well.

Well, what if we treated her well before she revolted and got sick?

What if we treated her well, despite our judgments on what she 'should' be?

What would it be like if we treated our bodies like temples, and everyday that was the lens through which we made choices?

I am not sure what the answer is to that last question, but I want to know, and that is why today, I say YES! to this new self-love challenge...

 
The year I left my corporate job in 2007, I named "The year of receiving"... I always pick a mantra for the year based on the quality that I really want to bring into my life and my self. While I had always been great at making it happen, a skill very valued in the man-powered corporate world, I knew that to thrive as a an entrepreneur and a visionary leader I had to learn how to let things happen, I needed to activate my feminine super power of Receiving.

Three years later, even after a full year of learning it, I still find the Feminine Super Power of Receiving one of the hardest to explain, which seems weird to me on one hand because it should be as simple as saying, it's just like accepting a present from someone. They give you a gift, you say thank you. But that doesn't seem to quite cut it. It's like my achiever brain doesn't register something when I think about receiving in the biggest context of that is how I live my life. "What do you mean receive? Do I just sit here on my throne like Queen of Sheba letting my subjects bring me gifts?" Not exactly. And then you couple that with my social conditioning that it is better to give than to receive and then all those frayed guilt synapses I've spent years rewiring start to sparkle just a bit.

So in the absence of being able to appropriately explain the Feminine Super Power of Receiving to you, I did what any good achiever does, I decided to do something about it. But unlike my former achievement junkie self, I waited until I was 'invited' to do something about it.

After finishing my 40 day taking care of ME practice on February 13th, that little but mighty voice inside my head, who I have come to know and love as my intuition said to me... let's try Receiving again. At first my ego was a little bruised, "What do you mean? I spent an entire year learning how to receive? Do you mean I have more to learn?" An undeniable YES! was her answer, and now I sit here roughly 20 days since I began, and here is what I have learned...

You'll spend less energy and you'll receive more if you wait for an "invitation" vs. pushing to make it happen.

Several months ago one of my dear friends Catherine told me that she had proclaimed a new life rule (she does this on occasion)... and this time her new life lens was 'I wait to do anything until I am invited.' And I thought to myself, "Well that is nice, good for you! And that is a non-apply to me." It was like one of those moments when you kind of get what someone is saying and on the other hand kind of don't but in either case, know you don't really want to know more. Of course what I realize now is that what she shared with me was just sheer brilliance, I was just not ready to see it

Fast forward to two weekends ago, early into my 40-day Receiving when I attended the Sister Giant conference in Los Angeles put on by Marianne Williamson... an event mind you that I was 'invited' to come to another friend. I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall.

This other friend is a master at the invitation... although I didn't know it at the time because we've only know each other a few months. When I say she is a master at the invitation what I mean is that she let's things come to her. Opportunities arise, she notices them, she says, Yes or No, and then she moves into them. She's lived her whole life this way she tells me. And this time my achiever brain goes, "Huh, I think there is something to this invitation thing!" Both she and Catherine expend tremendously less energy than I do. No toil to 'make it happen' or 'get it all done' or 'be in the right place at the right time' or 'have the right plan'... and yet they are both successful, they are both happy and the truth is that they are more free to enjoy their lives than I am.

It's not that they aimlessly float around their lives waiting for someone to invite them to a party or tell them what they want to do. They have a knowing and a focus on what they want. They are women of action. And they accomplish great things - from raising daughters, to writing best sellers, to choregraphing beautiful dances and changing people's consciousness - no small feats! But they do it with a grace and ease that until now I know I have lacked, and that I believe that I have officially not believed worked as well as my tactic of push, push, make it happen.

living by invitation only

I lived by invitation for the entire weekend at Sister Giant and the magic that happened for me was profound - I had experiences and met women that I never would have if I had been up to my old achiever ways... and it all unfolded for me.

I am currently still living by invitation which has continued to bring more magic... and questions... but I will save those for another blog.  For now, consider yourself the 40-day receiving practice and living by invitation only.