Does your heart open wide when love
knocks on your door?
Expanding and opening to let the love
flow in.
Or does your heart contract, recoil and
pull back
Peer out the window, want to open the
door so badly, but is too afraid
Of what would happen if it let love in
again?
Does your heart rush in with open arms
to find and embrace connection in this world
Expecting to receive love back
Knowing that love is everywhere when
you know where to look
And when your heart is open to receive
it?
Or is your heart cautious, having been
hurt before,
So it doesn't let itself open too
wide or let too many people in
Instead of skipping through life freely
and joyfully
Is your heart walking safely and
securely never risking too much?
It's okay you know,
We've all be hurt
We've all had our innocent pure
loving hearts smacked around
Stepped on
Looked over
Rejected
Abandoned
And as a result,
You may have built big walls around
your heart
So you'd never be hurt again
Or you may have taken all the walls
down
Hoping you'd be loved again, if you
just gave more of yourself away.
And although you were doing what you
needed to do
To protect yourself at the time
The truth is that what actually
protects you most is not walls or the giving of yourself away,
The biggest protection you have in life
is love.
But love can only protect you if you
let it in.
Love can only serve you if you let it.
All love needs is permission to open
the door of your heart again.
Think of all the ways that love comes
knocking on your heart's door today:
When a stranger smiles
Do you smile back and let the love
permeate your heart
Or do you give a fake obligatory smile
or pretend you didn't notice?
When someone approaches you with the
offer of a hug
Do you let the embrace fully envelope
you
Letting all your body parts touch,
chest, belly and arms
Or do you politely offer a few pats on
the back, never touching hearts
Or do you go for the A frame hug,
letting your upper chest touch but the hug stops there.
When someone offers to help you or pays
you a compliment
Does your heart open wide to say THANK
YOU! YES! I will receive that
Or do you push back their gift
Saying you can handle it on your own
Or "this old thing, I've had it for
years!"
When someone offers you a chance to
connect during your 'busy' day
Do you stop and make time for love
Or do you skip by the moments in life
in which love is offered
Putting it on hold for when you have
time,
But those times come far and few
between?
When you wake up in the morning
Do you look around and notice the magic
and splendor of the beauty of this world?
Do you fill your heart with all that
you are grateful for
Or do you jump out of bed without
noticing much of anything
Except thinking of all the things you
have to do or all that you haven't yet done?
When you find yourself in relationship
with an intimate partner, a lover, a mate
Do you let down your walls of
protection
And show them the truth of your heart
and soul
Even in the times, especially in the
times, when you are afraid?
Do you lean in with an open heart to
create the intimacy that you desire,
Or do you use love as a weapon, or say
you want intimacy but then don't offer it?
Do you settle for less than the deep
emotional connection that only two open hearts can create
And tell yourself that what you have is
enough.
When your heart knows that it is not?
What if today, you let your heart speak
freely.
What would she or he say?
What one daring act of love would you
be willing to take
To risk letting love walk in your
heart's door?
To set your heart free
To do what it does best
To love.
And in return allow you to revel and
trust in that love forever.
Popular
author of Choosing
ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love,
Christine
Arylo has been called the Queen of Self-Love. Her insights, fresh
perspectives and daring take on love, in all its forms, have been
featured on TV and radio stations across the country, in the world's
top spas and retreat centers, and in colleges and corporations. She
is the founder of Madly in Love with ME, an international movement of
self-love, which includes a free self-love kit downloadable at
www.ChooseSelfLove.com.
She is also the co-founder of Inner
Mean Girl Reform School,
a virtual school where women go to transform their self-sabotaging
voices into self-empowering ones.
If you were to stop and look around your life
At your job
Your relationships
Your finances
Your responsibilities
The goals driving your decisions
How free do you really feel?
And if the answer isn't SUPER FREAKING FREE ... then why is that?
Isn't FREEDOM - really what you, me and we are all working so dang hard for?
Because, let's face it -- we all do work pretty hard, and for what?
Money? Time? Security? ...
or is what we are really after Freedom? Happiness? Love?
In the wake of thinking a lot about life and death these last few weeks,
(thank you so much everyone for all the loving emails, they've meant so much!)...
I've been having some deep conversations with the universe...
About the why so many people feel TRAPPED.
Why we WORK so dang HARD.
About why we WAIT to live the lives our hearts and souls yearn for. How is it possible that our generation has more opportunity
than all the generations before us combined...
Yet most people aren't any happier?
Today, I can say that I have created a life in which I feel very free.
I know that I am one of the most free and happy people I know.
I still have a mortgage, a car lease, and people who count on me...
I still have aspirations and big dreams
I don't live in a tent, and I haven't had to relinquish my worldly possessions! My freedom comes from within, from who and what I give power to.
To what I truly have faith in.
To what I trust most in.
It's taken me 10 years of conscious decisions to get off
what I call the "Escalator to Death" ... some it the call "The Road to
Nowhere"... and others call "The American Dream," or what the American
Dream has morphed and twisted into: work your butt off, every day to
get farther ahead, amass more stuff, and create "enough" financial
security so that you can feel safe... or like you have finally gotten 'there' But most of us, even when we get 'there' just feel more trapped than we did before. Crazy!
After you watch the video, I'd love to hear from you about how you would like to be more free in your life -- is it in
your career,
your financial freedom,
your relationships,
your self expression,
your capacity to let love in?
And then pick ONE step you will take in the next 48 hours to give
yourself more freedom in that area... claim it here on the blog (what you state you are a gazillion more times likely to do!) and watch your happiness and love
quotients RISE!
HI Sister or Brother Control Addict - yes, it's okay, you can admit that like most of us human beings you love to control. Well, maybe not love, but you can't seem to help yourself. Control is what your mind believes gives you power. Power to keep yourself safe, secure and successful. Which of course is SO not true. What control really does is give you migraines, stress, swinging emotions and a heck of alot more work!
Not to fret. There is another way to live. One that offers way more happiness, love, peace... one that allows miracles to show up in your life... one that gives you the feeling of safety and security you need to take the risks in life that bring your heart and soul what they truly desire.
And that way is the way of the Feminine Super Power of Surrender. Surrender is the choice to let go of control and struggle, letting yourself step into, fall into, move into the unknown, led by the light of the divine (even when you can't see it!) Check out the video above and I'll share with you why we try to control, why surrender is a much better choice, and two easy ways you can move into surrender vs. control in any moment of your day!
SELF LOVE DARE And then, in honor of us recovering controllers I invite you to post on this blog one thing you are trying to control using this statement of surrender
"I SURRENDER (insert the thing you are trying to control) to the DIVINE (or whatever you call this higher power."
And then put yourself in the Surrender Position (as illustrated in the video) and release control by doing the "I SURRENDER" mantra 3x!
The release feels divine!!
EXTRA SURRENDER INSIGHTS...
Sometimes we don't like to admit we are trying to control, and sometimes we are just totally blind to it. To help you amp up your awareness when you are in Control mode, here are four ways you know when you are NOT surrendering:
ONE: Your Body tells you -
Tighten jaw
Shoulder blades, neck get tense, control the universe spot
Head spins
Anxiety in your chest
Fatigue
TWO: Your Emotions tell you
Crabby
Lash Out
Get bossy
Angst
THREE: Your Mind tells you
Won't shut down or off - insomnia, busy busy, monkey mind, can't meditate
Obsessive - going over and over in head, dog on bone, can't let go
In the future or the past - wishing for it to be different than it is.
FOUR: Your Habits tell you
Work harder - overwork (work-aholic)
Life falls out of balance and harmony - becomes lopsided - all about work, all about the kids, all about helping someone
Reaching out in an obsessive kind of way to get feedback and answers from others - collude, gossip, seek too much feedback
3 ways to feel super loved even when
your relationship is ending
Most of us have been
trained to believe that when a relationship ends, we lose the love of
the person who we once felt so loved by. This belief is an instant
misery-creating lie that is simply not true. The truth is, love is
impossible to lose. Yes, you feel pain because of this breakup, but
not because you've lost your former person's love. You hurt
because endings of any kind are sad. You hurt because you have lost
the dream of what could have been. You hurt because the loss stirs up
your own fears and past pains. You hurt because there is an empty
space in your life that wasn't there before, a space that you've
been told is the loss of love, but it's not.
The space you feel is an
opening for more love to come into your life - starting with the
love you have for yourself, and then expanding to include all the
love that the world is just salivating to give you. Love is
everywhere, when you are open to receiving it, and when you know
where to look. Opening to love can be hard during a breakup, but I
know no better medicine than love for mending a bruised or broken
heart.
If you are interested in
taking yourself off the pain train and moving into a space where you
can honor your sadness and at the same time feel more love, happiness
and possibility, then read on and put these three Love-Generators to
work for you:
LOVE GENERATORS
1. Tell yourself the
truth. You are not losing love. You are ending a relationship.
Do yourself a BIG favor
and be honest about why your relationship ended, and don't make it
about love.
Love is an easy excuse
when you don't want to be real about why your breakup is necessary
to stay true to the most important partner in your life ... you.
Love is indestructible. It
may get masked or deeply buried under feelings of anger and
disappointment, but even in the most gnarly circumstances, love never
disappears, it just goes into hiding.
Relationships are dynamic,
they are always changing form, and sometimes in order to be happy,
two people have to go their separate ways - which has nothing to do
with love. Relationships end not because the love dies, but because
the intimacy, trust, respect or connection fades, because the
contract with each other completes, or because you each want and need
different things from life. Not all relationships are meant to 'be
forever,' if they were, you'd never meet anyone new.
Make a list of all the
reasons why the ending of this relationship is GOOD for you,
necessary for you to live the life you were destined to live. Then,
take an act of self-love and state the reasons out loud. Self-honesty
is self-love.
Know this. You are loved.
Always. And that love, starts and end with you. It's ridiculous to
give the power of feeling loved away to another, when you have the
power to feel loved at will inside of yourself.
2. Mourn the loss of
the dream, not of the person. And remember your dream didn't die.
We often cause ourselves
more pain than needed during a breakup because we misplace our
mourning energy and end up grieving more than we need. We've
already established that the love lives on, so you can take "loss
of love" off your mourning list. You can also take off 'grieving
the loss of my ex-person' - because they are not dead, they just
aren't sleeping next to you anymore. What is dying and important to
grieve is the loss of the DREAM you had for this relationship. Your
hopes, intentions and co-created dreams came to a crashing halt when
the choice was made to end the partnership, and the loss of those
dreams is where much of the pain lies. But when you aren't clear
that's it's the lost dream you are mourning, you get all caught
up in trying to change and control things you can't.
So be sad. Get angry. Move
into acceptance and surrender that this particular dream is gone. But
don't stay stuck there. Keep your mind out of dramatic thoughts
like "My relationship is over!" or "I'll be alone forever!"
or "What if he finds someone else and loves her more?" Thoughts
like these create unnecessary pain - kind of like poking your
tongue into fresh dental work. Ouch! It hurts. Don't do it.
Move your focus from what
you can't control - bringing the old dream back - and dive into
what you can, reconnecting with the dream you have for your life! The
ending of one dream means the beginning of another, and you still
have the power to dream forward the life your heart and soul want.
When you dream yourself
forward, you create more love in your life because you are telling
yourself that you are worth dreaming for. And you are. Yes, the dream
of your former relationship may have ended, but your dreams for
yourself didn't, so why would you give up on yourself? If you
aren't dreaming yourself forward, who will? Love yourself enough to
move towards your dreams.
3. Find proof that love
exists everywhere. Fill your life with love.
While you might not be
receiving the oodles of physical love you once did from your former
mate, he/she is not the only love source on the planet. The worst
thing you can do during a breakup is starve yourself from love...
that is the surest way to get your Inner Mean Girl all riled up with
rants like, "You'll never be loved again." Which of course, is
a straight up lie.
The best thing you can do
for yourself is to find proof of love and fill your life with it. You
live on a planet that is abundantly full of love - it's
everywhere - and it's your job to see it, ask for it, and let it
in. The more love you surround yourself with, the more love you will
feel, and the easier this transition will be for you.
Here is your shopping
list of love generators. Put the list up somewhere you can see it,
and make sure each week you are getting your fill.
Connection.
Connection creates love. Be with people who
love you. Not to talk about 'the relationship' or fix you but
just to be with. Walk. Snuggle. Play. Let them love on you.
Smiles. Show
those pearly whites to anyone you can - baristas, strangers, the
person sitting next to you on the bus - and when they smile back,
let the love in. When they don't - and some won't - smile
anyway and send them love. A great way to feel love is to give it.
Music. No
sappy love songs, only inspiring, uplifting music for you. Turn it
on, dance it out. This is an instant way to turn your obsessive mind
off and open your heart to love. India Arie is my fave.
Animals and
Children. Like instant shots of love, hug a
puppy, look into the eyes of a baby, pet a kitty, and just feel
their innocence and love permeate your cells.
Self-Love. Do
nice things for yourself. Take yourself on dates. Do the things you
love. Take a risk. Remind yourself of why you love you. Make an
I-Love-ME list - 108 reasons why you love you. Keep it in your
purse, and on hard days, read it to yourself. Instant love.
About Christine Arylo
Popular author of Choosing
ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Lovewww.mebeforewe.comChristine has been called the Queen of Self
Love. Her insights, fresh perspectives and daring take on love, in
all its forms, have been featured on TV and radio stations across the
country, in the top spas and retreat centers in the world, and in
colleges and corporations throughout America. She is the founder of
Madly in Love with ME, an international movement of self-love, which
includes a FREE self-love kit downloadable at www.ChooseSelfLove.com.
She is also the co-founder of Inner
Mean Girl Reform School, a virtual
school where women go to transform their self-sabotaging voices into
self-empowering ones.
When I first met my husband Noah ten years ago, if you had met me, you would have thought to yourself, "Now here is a smart woman. She's getting her m.b.a., great job, confident. Here is a woman with tons of self esteem." And you would have been right. That was all true. Which is why what I am about to tell you is even more shocking.
By our third date, Noah was so taken aback by my big reactions towards his small acts of kindness, that he felt compelled to take me by the hands and say to me, "Christine, I don't know what is going to happen between the two of us, but regardless, you have to raise your standards for men. You can't like a man because he is nice to you. He is SUPPOSED to be nice to you!"
What??? My M.B.A. brain reeled in total confusion as if Noah had just proven to me that the world was actually flat. In all my 30+ years I had never considered the fact that the minimum bar of acceptance was a man who was nice to me. And like a time-stamped rolodex, my brain reeled back to all the not-so-nice behavior I had endured, experienced, and come to expect.
So yes, it was true, I was a mentally intelligent woman, but I was emotionally retarded. And as I looked around at many of my friends, I noticed a definite trend. Beautiful and well-liked women with successful careers who constantly chose men that didn't treat them with the unconditional respect and love they craved and deserved. Which, of course, just like me, made them chase them, want them, and change for them more.
Yes, we all had smarts. What we were missing was self-love.
What we didn't know was:
Unconditional Love and Respect in Your Relationships is NOT an Upgrade.
It's a Must.
While we all knew that we could do the job, get the grades and build the career, what we had failed to see was that unconditional love and respect was where our expectation bar for men should be sitting, and that in order to do that, we had to be able to give that same unconditional love and respect to ourselves.
Fortunately for me when I had this epiphany, I was three months into my now ten year journey of self-love, so I really took a step back and asked myself, 'How did I get to the age of 30 before I realized that men were supposed to be nice to me?' and 'What can I do to make sure I never sell myself short again?'
From one smart woman to another, who finally did learn to love herself, here is what I discovered:
3 reasons why we expect men to not be nice:
Bad training. If you were lucky, your mother told you to expect men to be nice to you, or you were out of there. My mother, like most, never made it around to that talk. Not because she had some sick desire for me to suffer, she just didn't know this fact herself. Ignorance and tolerance are like bad family heirlooms passed down generation to generation. The good news is that you have the power to break the cycle whenever you choose.
Set points were set with immature boys not good men. Our first experiences with the opposite sex in regards to the whole boyfriend/girlfriend dynamic are set on the playground, playing out adult dramas in totally childlike ways. One minute he's your boyfriend. Next, he's spitting spitballs at you. This continues through high school and college, so your brain creates set points that say this is the normal state to allow. Problem is, "spit balls" don't feel any better at the age of 27 or 37 than they did when you were 8
Bad examples, everywhere. From the movies, tv shows, music and internet, it's a constant barrage of men being jackasses. This is bad rap for men, and bad input for you. Subconsciously your brain stores bad as normal (92% of the images you see go right around your conscious thoughts into your subconscious). Add your own personal experience of men - from family, friends and strangers - and you could see how your subconscious brain could form all kinds of thoughts you had no idea were there.
So What Do You Do? Choose Self-Love.
All of the bad programmings and low expectations can be reversed and avoided by changing one thing - your relationship to yourself. The truth is that every relationship you have is a direct reflection of the relationship you have with yourself. If you don't have unconditional love and respect for yourself, there is no way that you can expect it from someone else, which is quite often why you will settle for less.
In my book Choosing ME before WE, I talk about the 5-vows of self-love every woman must make with herself first, before she can have a loving relationship with another. Here are two of those vows. I invite you to take it and keep it, and honor the most important relationship you'll ever have - the one with you.
Self Love Promises:
I honor myself.
I never settle for less than my heart and soul desire.
All of my relationships support me to be my best me and to live my dreams, or I don't have them.
I give unconditional love and respect, and I expect it in return.
This doesn't mean that all of your relationships are perfect, void of difficulty, or that you are absolved of giving the same respect and love you desire. Unconditional love and respect go both ways. It also doesn't mean that you go cutting people out of your life without taking a good deep look at what you want from your relationships, what part you play in creating that relationship dynamic, and then taking steps to transform, let go or grow the relationships you currently have so that EVERY SINGLE ONE reflects that same unconditional love and respect you have for yourself.
Self-love requires that you choose me before we in every relationship, which is not about being a self-centered, narcissistic, its-all-about-me kind of person. What choosing me before we means is that because you have made a commitment to create what your heart and soul desire, you don't have space in your life for relationships that drag you down, hold you back, create negative ju ju feelings (like shame, guilt, self doubt) or take more energy than they give.
You are a beautiful woman. Be nice to yourself. And believe you are worth being nice to.
About Christine Arylo Christine Arylo, an m.b.a. turned writer, speaker and teacher, is an inspirational catalyst who teaches women how to love themselves. A recovering achievement junkie and doing addict, Arylo is the co-founder of Inner Mean Girl Reform School and the popular author of Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love www.mebeforewe.com. Known as the "Queen of Self-Love," Arylo created Madly in Love with ME, the international day of self-love (Feb 13), dedicated to making self-love a tangible reality for women and girls around the world. www.madlyinlovewithme.com
Start a company. Support your family. Save the world. Stay looking like you are 25. And by the way, don't break a sweat while doing it... after all, other women seem to be keeping it together, what's wrong with you? That's the mind chatter of the 21st century super women who looks like she has it all together, smiling the stress away through her teeth.
Behind this façade, however, is the reality that we super women feel completely overwhelmed, yet we don't know how to do our busy lives any differently. Dig deeper behind the mask, and you will find that as insane as this may sound, most women wear their busyness like it's a badge of honor, proving we are worthy because we can get so much done.
We have become a generation of achievement junkies and doing addicts. Forget Generation X or Y, how about calling us Generation E, for Exhausted! But it's not totally our fault, you know, we were bred to be this way. Girls and women today have more opportunities, self-confidence and independence than any generation of women before, a reality that many women and men fought hard for, and one that we don't want to give back.
However, like all forward movements for humankind, the feminist movement has also had unintended impacts. Women today, while freer in many ways, face more pressure than their grandmothers and mothers combined, which leads to more responsibilities, choices and ultimately stress, but not to more happiness (a fact backed by last year's Time Magazine study which compared the level of happiness of women in the 1970s to today, the same.)
Quite simply put, women have been liberated, yes, but we've basically moved ourselves into a new jail cell with the nameplate:
"I feel empowered to do anything, but pressured to do everything."
As it turns out, the lifestyle expectations for the modern world woman are completely unsustainable. Most women are running on fumes, on the verge of burnout, and now even our grade school girls - driven to be super achievers from a young age - experience chronic symptoms of stress once only known to adults (my biggest stress at 11 was getting caught sticking my finger in the chocolate chip cookie batter!)
The solutions thus far have been focused on giving girls and women around the world self-esteem, teaching the message, "You can do anything."And there lies the problem. The focus is on 'doing.' While self-esteem has been a critical step for raising the confidence of women and girls around this country, the unintended impact is a generation who defines themselves and their value by what they 'do.'
We have conditioned our selves and our girls to believe that if we are not doing everything, then we are failing, ultimately leading to the damaging and crushing belief that
"You are not enough."
The unintended impact of the self-esteem movement has left us with this problem: No matter how much a woman or girl does, she will never feel like she is enough, and therefore she will never attain the happiness she works so hard for.
So what is the new solution?
Self-Love.
How is self-love different than self-esteem?
Self-love has nothing to do with what you 'do' but everything to do with how you respect and love yourself. Self-love, when you have it, doesn't measure your worth by what you've accomplished, but by the measure of,
"Have you treated yourself and others with unconditional love and respect?"
The definition of self-love posted on dictionary.com is "conceit, vanity and narcissism," a testament to how our society currently views self-love. Is it surprising that most women feel guilty when they take time away from the doing to take care of themselves? Or that they don't value the ability to relax, find inner peace or just 'be' like they value the ability to get it all done?
Our patterns, habits and beliefs as 21st century women have been formed based on valuing ourselves by what we can do instead of by who we are, regardless of what we accomplish. If we ever hope to have lives that sustain us versus drain us, we must rewire our thought patterns and change what we value.
The ticket out of the overwhelm and overwork is not another downward dog pose, a new time management system or the holy grail of balance. The ticket out is your belief that you are enough simply because you are, and that is the act of self-love.
3 Acts of Self-Love You Can Start Today:
Stop wearing your busyness and overwhelm like a badge of honor. Give up saying things like "I am SO busy. I have SO much to do." Stop looking for sympathy and acknowledgment for your busyness. If you feel overwhelmed or too busy, don't be a martyr, instead take your life back. Go through your calendar and say "No" to previous "Yes'." Renegotiate promises and deadlines. You'll be amazed how the world just gives you the space you ask for when you stop valuing yourself for being so darn busy.
Stop acknowledging other women for their super human feats of multi-tasking. When a woman flashes her busy badge of honor - whether your are face-to-face or facebooking - instead of congratulating or commiserating with her, either ignore the invitation to collude, or invite her to put less pressure on herself by sharing your personal experience of transforming your own overwhelm into self-love.
Start your morning by asking, "What do I need to take care of me today?" How you start your day is how you will live your day, so before you even get out of bed, close your eyes and ask yourself what you really need that day to take care of yourself. Listen to what your intuition tells you. No matter what, keep that promise to yourself, even if that means doing nothing!
About Christine Arylo Christine Arylo, an m.b.a. turned writer, speaker and teacher, is an inspirational catalyst who teaches women how to give up their doing addiction and to stop being so hard on themselves. A recovering achievement junkie and doing addict herself, Arylo is the co-founder of Inner Mean Girl Reform School and the author of Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman's Guide to Life and Love www.mebeforewe.com. Known as the "Queen of Self-Love," Arylo created Madly in Love with ME, the international day of self-love (Feb 13), dedicated to making self-love a tangible reality for women and girls around the world. www.madlyinlovewithme.com
Only a week into the My Body is My Temple self-love practice I've come upon the most disturbing realization.... I've been scheduling my body out of my life for years. No wonder I don't ever feel like I have 'time' to do the things I need to take care of my body... it's only when she acts up or doesn't perform that I pay any attention to her at all.
WOW! Sitting here with this realization of my self-created self-love sabotage, how I wish that I could blame the fact that I never have time for my body on some all-powerful Calendar God who has taken control of my calendar, making it impossible for me to find me time... and making it inconvenient at best to find time to take care of this thing called a body. But the fact is that it is I, me, Christine, who over and over again seems to schedule myself right out of my own life.
That became crystal clear to me last weekend when I found myself at my acupuncturist office on a Saturday morning. I really needed to be in that office four days prior, on Wednesday when the immense pressure and tight stress that had been sitting in my shoulders for days, suddenly moved its way into the entire right side of my body, from my finger to my toe, causing my arm and leg to feel like dead weights vs. healthy active limbs. But when I looked at my schedule and compared it to the open office hours, there was no space for me. My calendar was full of commitments to other people... all great stuff, and all things I love, but all things that meant there would be no time for my body until Saturday.
So my temple and I did the best we could, asking my generous guy Noah to give us spontaneous massages before bedtime, just to do something with the stuck energy sitting in our body. And on Saturday, I made it to see Dr. Feng, After many needles, he said what he often says to me, wise man that he is, "Christine, you must take care of yourself too. When you give and give to everyone else you will have nothing left for yourself.' "Yes, Dr. Feng," I thought, "I have heard that before." But this time I went on to think, "Well, why is it that those words never make it past the Taoist zen of his office?"
And then the Calendar God spoke... or maybe it was my Inner Wisdom that responded, "Uh, because you never schedule yourself into your life. You schedule yourself out of your life, by scheduling everyone and everything else in first." Ahhh! Ancient Chinese Secret! Yes, I get it.
Seeing my life through this new self love lens of "My Body As My Temple" suddenly I got something that I had been missing about this sage advice from Dr Feng. While I was vastly improved on taking me time to do something I enjoyed, I hardly ever took time explicitly for my temple.
My Epiphany... taking time for ME wasn't enough, i have to take ME Temple Time too!
The 40-day self love practice of "Taking Care of ME" that I did from January through Feb 13th had made an impact: I improved at taking ME TIME when it came to 'doing' something I want to do. I could read a book, or start work a little later without guilt.
it didn't address taking care of my BODY, she was still an after thought.
Scheduling time to take care of my body, to do the things SHE wants and needs, hmmm, that hardly ever makes the list. In fact it only seems to make the list when my body and her needs have reached the place of dire straights. Like, my toenail polish is currently half missing... my dentist appointment rescheduled twice.... my refrigerator on it's way to barren... and don't get me started on the underwear again...
And wait, the self-sabotage becomes even more clear... when I walked out of the treatment room at Dr. Fengs on Saturday... I approached the receptionist and said with pride, "I would like to schedule my next appointment with Dr. Feng" (thinking to myself, okay Calendar God, we are going to schedule this temple first!)...
"In fact," I went on to say with pride, "I would like to schedule my WEEKLY appointments for the next month to support My Body as My Temple self love practice."
Her face smiled, my face smiled, both full of happy at the thought of my body receiving such love. And then... my Iphone emerged with news that announced, "You can't do Tuesday, you can't do Thursday, you can't even do next Saturday... you have no body time availability to see Dr. Feng for a week and a half!"
How can that be I thought as I looked again and again at the days and times, asking that poor receptionist at least 10 times, so when again are your office hours? Again and again I searched, and there was nothing. And that is when it struck me...
Christine, you have scheduled yourself right out of your life!
And you know, as much as I hate to admit it, that statement is true. If I am honest, then I have to admit that I have never made my body a priority. It has always been a "thing" I needed to take care of.... And usually only after it acted up in some way. You think I would have gotten to see Dr. Feng if she hadn't started acting up this week. Honestly, no.
And that makes me sad. 1. That I would think of my body as a thing vs a temple. 2. That I would call her an 'it'. And 3. That I haven't made her ME TIME a priority.
Well thank goodness for this 40-day self-love practice, My Body is My Temple!!! Because now I am actually aware of a pattern I didn't really understand. Yes, I am much better at taking ME TIME, but wow, I still have some shifts to make in ME TEMPLE TIME.
So you know what my first action was after I sat their frantically trying to find 'time' on my Iphone calendar while the very very kind receptionist watched me, "I surrendered. I said, okay, next week is what it is. And, the week after I start my ME TEMPLE TIME with Dr. Feng weekly. And I scheduled my body right into my calendar for the entire month of April! And then, wait, I went one step further, I came home and instead of picking up my computer and going right to work, I laid in bed and let the magic of Dr. Feng Temple Time soak in. I am shifting... more self-love on the scene!
I have always been a big believer that how you feel on the inside is how you feel on the outside. And when it when it comes to my spirit and soul - I get an A+. 9 years of personal exploration, a daily practice and a lifetime commitment to being connected to and serving a source much bigger than I. The core of my being, my spirit and soul feel pretty good.
However, when I go from the spirit/soul level to the inside of my physical and very human body, my grade slips because I do really love red wine and cheese. But I still give myself a solid B... and getting better every day as my body becomes my temple over these next 40 days.
But now let's go two layers out -past the epidermal layer to the layer that sits on top of it... my underwear, and Houston we currently have a problem!
I have always believed that feeling good from the inside out included how the clothes under my clothes felt. Old and comfy grandma-like underwear... feel old, comfy and tired. Mismatched or uncomfortable bras and panties... not operating or looking my best on the outside. And we won't even mention the ones who've become faded, holey, or a relic from history.
Think about it... when you put on your best underwear or your super fun panties don't you feel fabulous?
And when you put those, let's just call them 'other' underwear, do you feel any kind of good at all?
Yesterday, I found myself looking through my underwear drawer noticing that my supply had dwindled to two pairs of 'feel good and sexy,' three pairs of 'fun and free' and many pairs of 'other.' Which I might not have noticed, had I not been getting dressed to go to an appointment with my personal stylist at Nordstrom's. I thought that I had chose a cross between feel good and fun undergarment, up until I found myself in the Nordstrom's dressing room removing my jeans and shirt to slip on a designer dress, and to my complete horror... I discover I have a hole in my panties! Ahh!!!
Not big, not even that noticeable, but a hole in my panties. The panties on my temple! And my temple says to me, in the most loving voice (quietly so no one else could hear thank goodness), "Really Christine, this is an unacceptable adornment for a temple... and for you. Where is the self-love? I am calling for an Underwear Revolution!
The Underwear Revolution...
on search for fun, super-powered panties.
After successfully finding and buying the cutest black and white spring dress, I beelined myself to the lingerie department. What I quickly realized is that I had just walked into a huge jungle of underwear! Trees and tress of panties, bushes of bras, and the occasional tiger striped slip lurking in the distance. I was overwhelmed!
Nylon. Cotton. Rayon blend. G-string. Boy short. Full panty. Lace. Bows. Seamless. White. Bright Pink. Multi-colored. And I won't even get into the bushels of bras! All I wanted was some fun, super-powered panties and now I found myself feeling like I used to feel when I would go to buy wine... staring at the rows and rows of bottles, feeling rather uneducated, not wanting to make a mistake, and ultimately just closing my eyes, trusting my intuition and hoping for the best!
Something in my intuition said not to approach buying my fun super-powered panties this way... that it would pay to take some time to make choices that would make MY temple happy, which may or may not be the same for another woman.
I didn't buy a single pair of panties that day... but I did come up with some rules about what my temple wants from the fabric that sits between her skin and the clothing the world sees. I am going to sit with these proclamations... do a little more research... and then when I am ready, wave the flag to start the Underwear Revolution.
Proclamations for the Underwear Revolution
My temple wants to breathe - she doesn't want to be suffocated.
My temple wants to feel super-powerful - not like she is wearing a diaper.
My temple wants to be fun and free - not dowdy and constricted
My temple doesn't like things crawling into crevices they don't belong - she likes things in their right place, that feel good.
My temple wants to have choices about how she wants to feel on any given day - sassy, super powered, fun, sensitive, sexy, sporty, free.
My temple wants to be adorned with beauty, always, and appreciates the care and self-love I put into every piece of fabric I put on her, as much as she appreciates every morsel of food I put in her.
I am SO enjoying the conversation I am having with my temple about our Underwear Revolution. And it feels so much better than the way I would have approached this before: Picked a few underwear from the rack, not paid attention to the $$, hoped for the best when I got home, and probably been half happy and half disappointed... ultimately creating guilt for spending too much money, stress from not knowing the right decision to make, and judgment about how I should know better to repeat this not self-loving pattern.
It's only Day 4 of the My Body is My Temple Self-Love practice, and all ready I have more self love! Who would have thought you could get that from a pair of underwear!!
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 40-day "My body is My temple" Self-Love Practice will you join me??
Every morning, before you get out of bed, close your eyes and talk to your body. Yes, have a conversation with her. Ask her "Body, oh temple of mine, what do you need today?" Okay, I know it may sound a bit hokey, but trust me, this kind of stuff works. Fake it til you make it. In other words, be willing to try it, feel uncomfortable and have a breakthrough. Got nothing to lose.
Live with "My Body is My Temple" as a mantra and a lens to make decisions from. During each day and throughout the 40-day time period, think about the choices you make from the standpoint of, "Is this treating my body as a temple?" Notice I didn't say 'jail cell' where you get all controlling and start putting crazy diet rules on yourself. I said temple. Think about food, movement, sleep, affection, clothing, bathing, anything that affects you physically. Make ALL choices based on what does support your body as a temple.
Adore and Adorn Her. Temples are beautiful places that are cherished and beautified. This means nothing other than loving your body for 40-days. No harsh words or judgments, just love. You start to judge? Stop and love instead. This also means bringing out her beauty. No sloppy sweats with stains or a shirt with a hole in the armpit. Think Aphrodite, what would she put on her temple? You don't need a new wardrobe, just put on your body what a temple deserves, clean, pretty and loved items.
Try New. Whether its your food, your clothing, your body movement and exercise, whatever... introduce new practices into your daily life. Eat raw for a day. Wear a pink scarf to work, with rhinestones! Do smoothies for breakfast. Have fun by trying new stuff.
Share what your are learning. I'll be documenting my journey on this blog and also on our Madly in Love with ME Facebook fan page. I know I will learn lots and you will too, and I'd love to hear what you are discovering. So go to our Madly in Love with ME Facebook Fan Page and share with the community what you are learning.
Last thing...
Whatever you do, this self-love practice, MUST be about self-love. This means no rule setting, deprivation, starvation, crazy diets or anything that makes you get stressed out, feel bad or be hungry or in pain. The challenge is to treat your body like a temple, while loving her and you every step of the way.
SO excited to have you on this journey! And if you decide to join us, please let us know you are on board, by posting a message on our Facebook site.
