Results tagged “how do i relax” from Self Love Blog

My whole life for as long as I can remember I have had a deep and primal internal drive whose job it has been to propel me forward... into the next job, house, or project. This drive was like a motor with the power and throttle of a speed boat, almost always on, sometimes in neutral (not often) and never completely off to just float in the water. It was constantly moving under the surface to do better, be better and have better.

I received a lot from this motor, for years it had been necessary for my survival. It propelled me out of a small-minded suburb... into college, later graduate school, then up the corporate ladder, out to California and eventually it catapulted me into the courage to leave my six-figure job to pursue my passion to teach, write and speak about self-love (a passion I only found on one of those rare occasions I let myself float with the motor off.)

But somewhere in the past three years, I began to see the cost of the continuously running motor, and I began to see the deeply ingrained patterns that ran me ragged...

COST: I had become the gas station slave to my life (and this motor),,, I worked harder and more than I had to because I had to fuel the motor with MY energy. This meant I had to work almost all the time. Sure I could take short breaks but I had to be ready to go back to fueling because eventually the motor would need more fuel, and as the gas attendant I was the only one to do it, in my mind. My internal psyche was hard wired to believe that I had to put the energy into my book, courses, websites, or whatever wouldn't generate the energy needed to sustain my life and my business. I had tons of faith in the universe to provide me opportunities, to show me the way and to be there when I fell... but I did not trust (or know how to trust) that it would do the majority of the fueling for me.

PATTERN: I have to drive and strive in order to survive. This "Carrot Chasing Pattern", and all Carrot Chasing Patterns keep us always chasing 'tomorrow' for the day 'when' XX will be true. Up until my early 30s, I had chased the carrot of happiness, the belief that a new house, job or anything external would make me 'happy.' At the age of 33, when I finally gave up that carrot and got that happy had to come from inside of me, I started chasing another carrot... I have enough of XX to finally relax, breathe, let go. For me that looked like beliefs - many subconscious, some not -- like "If I got XX book sales, or get on national TV or have XX amount of money then finally I wouldn't feel this massive pressure to strive, drive and make my life, my dreams and my intentions happen.

But the truth is that just like my happiness, the day that I will finally feel like I can relax, let go, breathe and trust that I am indeed taken care of will never come from an external measure like money, time, or achievements. It has to come from inside of me first. If I believe somewhere inside of me that I have to drive and strive to survive, I will continue to push myself until I fall over in exhaustion (which I have.)

We all have these self-sabotaging patterns, beliefs and habits that drive us, that take us away from what our hearts and souls truly want, the problem is that most of us have no idea that they are the one fueling that motor that never seems to shut off. The way I found this striving/driving carrot chasing pattern - and the way I find most of my patterns is through one of my 40-day self-love practices, this one called the Summer of Self-Love, designed to teach women, including ME, how to release the self-sabotaging pattern and pressure off of having to do, be and have it all... and replace it with the self-loving habit of "Receiving"  

 
On Day 7 of our RECEIVING practice, my power boat hit a brick wall. I awoke with an excruciating pain on my left side. I NEVER get sick, but on this day my body said different. I sat up, ouch! I got out of bed and couldn't stand straight... I crawled back into bed, totally confused.

I looked over to my partner Noah's nightstand and his deck of Doreen Virtue's Angel oracle cards lit up as if to get my attention (oracle cards are decks of cards in which each card contains a message, piece of wisdom or inspiration.) Now, I NEVER use his Angel cards. But then again, I was having a NEVER kind of day, so I reached over (ouch), opened the box, held the Angels in my hand and asked, "Angels, what do I need to "do" to RECEIVE today?" The card I pulled was, no kidding, "CLEAR YOURSELF... ask the angels to absorb any toxic energies you have absorbed." Hmmm. that made sense! I clearly had some toxins stuck in my kidneys making the left one hurt like heck.

Over the following 2 days, I visited my acupuncturist, drank weird herbs, slept, got angry that I was sick, blamed myself for being sick (yes, I get mad at myself for being sick), and the evening of third day, at the urging of my girlfriend to just let myself be sick, I finally surrendered and gave myself permission to ENJOY being sick, in bed. Within 24 hours, I realized three things:

1. 1. I had been getting the message to slow down since we started the receiving practice, but I couldn't find the throttle to turn off the motor. I didn't know how to slow down to the speed the universe was asking me to, so I smashed myself into a brick wall (aka ouch side pain.)
2. I have had a pattern for my entire lifetime that I no longer need, and that I am finally ready to release. My pattern, tied to my basic survival, was that if i wasn't striving or driving then I was not surviving. I released that pattern and in it's place, I installed the belief that I am a finely tuned instrument in the universe's orchestra, and I know that as such I am always taken care of. I will play my best, take care of myself so I can play with the most power possible, and that is very different energy than striving.
3. I love floating. I remember as a kid, that I had a hard time learning how to float, I always sank. I think I had a hard time trusting that I could float on my own. So one of my favorite things to do at our summer cottage became to get on one of those big plastic floats, float in the lake in the sun, knowing that I was held by the float and it by the water. Only then could I relax. I was only 7 - patterns start early!
   

We all have patterns that keep us from receiving... that keep that striving, driving, surviving, motor running.

I INVITE you to ask yourself these two questions to uncover and transform your patterns so that you too can learn a deeper level of trust and open yourself up to receive.

1. What is/are the underlying motivation, fear, or belief that keeps you driving, pushing, striving, always doing, or trying to make it happen? Think back through your life and look at the circumstances and experiences. You will find you answer there. Pick one pattern and make the choice to shift it. Once you bring it to awareness, the universe will meet you to help you make the shift.

2. Can you float? And do you? Do you spend ample time floating, and do you trust the universe to hold you up when you do? What beliefs and patterns can you shift or embrace to give you more floating time and more access to the universe fueling your tank?

I will leave you with this thought... a wise, happy and wealthy man once told me that the key to success was to spend your energy getting to a stream that was already running and then allow that stream to carry you. People who work way harder than they have to, and put too much pressure on themselves, he said, those are the people who spend all their energy trying to create their own stream.

So this summer, I invite us all to paddle over the stream that is running fully with the energy of the divine feminine and masculine, and let them be the fuel that powers us as we play as finely tuned instruments in their symphony of life. I'm here on my float, trusting, paddle on over!

www.summerofselflove.com 

Notes from the ME-Love Train -  Chicago & Mothers Day

Eight days in Chicago. Four media appearances. Three business meetings. Two speaking engagements. Two parties. Three friend dinners. Enough to keep two people busy, for way more than eight days. And plenty of 'work' to deserve a break at least one of the days that I was in Chicago. Even God rested on the 7th day right? But he wasn't a woman. And he wasn't a woman of the 21st century, born with a pair of genes that I call with both affection and despair, the Achievement Junkie gene and the Doing Addict gene. I've got them both. And chances are that if you are a woman between the ages of 0 and 100 you have them too. We've handed down these genes from generation to generation of women for centuries, like a good set of china. The problem is that unlike pretty china, these genes don't just come out for special occasions. These genes run our lives, 24/7.

My mother was a doing addict, still is. She can't sit still. Can't stop working until she has 'worked' hard enough to merit resting time. Growing up she was our full time mother, she worked full time in a big corporate building, ran a girl scout troop, ran a side business, cooked our food, sewed our clothes and fixed up our lake cottage on the weekends she was supposed to be 'resting'. I am the product of a doing addict, another generation of women doomed to feel that I either must be 'doing' all the time or feel guilty for not doing something. Even after 7 years of working to change this gene in me, it's still there. This last week in Chicago I found it virtually impossible to take one day for myself, to just relax. The universe had to actually make me sick with a sore throat (threatening my ability to speak the following day, which got my attention) to get me to stop. This was extremely ironic considering I was speaking to a group of women about the exact thing I was suffering from - the inability to take care of myself, sans guilt. But we teach what we are here to learn, and I learn more about self-love everyday.

I really don't know who is to blame for this self destructive gene that makes it hard for me to relax (it is physically painful,) to find value in just 'being', and to believe that I am enough right now without accomplishing anything else. I can't really blame my mother, she got it from her mother, and she from her mother and on and on. And I figure since I already have guilt, I sure as heck don't need blame too. So this Mother's Day, I am giving back by Doing Addict gene, again. Since I can't actually return it to a store like I could a set of china, I've decided to put my feminine super power, creativity, to use so that I can at the very least, get this gene regulated. It's time for some Doing Addict Therapy! Now, I realize that some of my therapy tactics may look like doing behavior, and it's because I've learned that the best way to get my Doing Addict under control is to get her on my side, working for me not against me. If you are a fellow Doing Addict, I invite you to try these out too:

Doing Addict Therapy

• Become a fantastic relaxer.  "I am a great relaxer, practicing many different forms of doing nothing." No TV, no crackberry. Now I am not going to sit and stare at the walls, that is painful and not relaxing for me. What I am going to do is find what relaxes me and then do that. I've been practicing with reading fiction books. It takes me to a different world and totally relaxes me. What relaxes you?
  
• Pick a sacred time when NO work can be done. "I set time each week that is just for me." I call it Goddess Sunday, and from the time I wake up until noon I do nothing that involves achieving anything. No talking about work, check lists or house work. Just me, a latte and the goddess. Maybe a book, magazine, or a talk with my guy. But no work on Goddess Sundays until noon. When is your sacred time?
  
• Have FUN with my friends, not work, not problem solving, FUN. "I have play dates with my friends when we just have FUN." I like to think of being 15 again and what we did for fun. Walk in the rain, listen to music, talk about movie stars, watch ridiculous movies, eat ice cream, drink wine (well maybe that's different). I've become much too serious with my friends - a side affect of the doing addict gene - and I am committed to laughing and being girls. When is your next play day? 

For more self-love ideas, you can download the Madly in Love with ME self-love starter kit at www.madlyinlovewithme.com