For the last 2 weeks I have been in a forced pause because I’ve been sick and my kids have been sick.
A part of my mind really did not like this. I am smack dab in the middle of promoting one of the highest stakes things I’ve ever promoted, my retreat SAVOR, and I have been left exhausted, plagued by brain fog, and unable to get myself up on the floor.
But, today, I started to feel my energy come back online. I feel myself peeking out from between the covers of my sick bed with a whole new outlook on life.
As I sit in awe of this newfound energy and opening I’m having a profound realization of how I am always led by the deeper thing in me, even when the more superficial things are really loud and upfront.
In hindsight (and it’s important to see that we can’t always see it in the moment), I am realizing that through this sickness (downward moving energetic) I fully let myself off the hook.
I could hear all the voices that wanted to pressure me into doing more, keep myself going at a certain expected pace, to make things happen no matter the cost to my well being and I was aware of these voices. In some ways I even believed them.
But ultimately, I listened to my body. I heard the voices that said I should be doing so much more than I am doing, but I let myself be, because the truth is, pushing myself to do things when everything in my physical body is saying “No. Rest. Stop,” is just not worth it to me anymore.
Nothing is worth the cost of my well being. Even a total and complete career “failure” is not worth risking my well being.
Because when you run yourself that hard, you’re already failing, even if you’re optically winning somewhere else.
True success to me means that I learn the lesson to be learned and I learn it all the way through.
True success, to me, means I am more integrated as a whole. It means I have come into a more authentic version of myself.
True success to me means all parts of me are welcome and can have a place at the table, not just the parts concerned with the rigid societal ideal of what success looks like.
I really let myself sink all the way down into the comfort of my sick bed.
I released all the deadlines, the “have to’s”, I really took pleasure and joy in the extra time spent with my girls.
I allowed myself to BE sick. More rest and sleep. More tea. Canceling plans and appointments.
I took many hot baths and trips to the wild hot springs up the road. I spent way more time dancing, slowly, with lots of breaks to roll around on the ground. I spent more time doing nothing at all because, in reality, it was all I could do.
Even though there were voices in my mind telling me how entirely not ok this was, I did it anyway. I gave it to myself anyway; voices and all.
The thing about letting yourself “have” the nourishment of an acute illness, a (sometimes, forced) pause, a disappointment, a let down, an overwhelming melancholy, a period of deep story-less exhaustion, a winter, is that, eventually, you have been on the bottom long enough that the only option is to push off the floor and float back up. It’s just the way it works.
Winter will always, eventually, shift into spring. Death always serves life. Look at the collapsed tree in the forest and how many burgeoning things make new life in its dead trunk.
We all need periods of rest and retreat. Our bodies are of the Earth and Earth Herself works in seasons and cycles. Women have a deeper connection to the truth of cycles within their very flesh and blood. The way we demonize the winter and our bleeding bodies is similar to the way we demonize death and these inevitable phases of downward depressions that are simply natural.
Show me how you treat yourself when you are sick and I’ll show you your relationship with the Feminine.
The true meaning of investing in yourself is allowing yourself to have your downward cycles. You can let them nourish you. You can let them show you where you need to put your attention and your energy.
These downward cycles do not have to be miserable. You don’t have to get deathly ill, injure yourself, or develop a chronic illness. You don’t have to bypass the sense of something not being right in your life until you’re in a full blown meltdown or keep creating drama that needs to be constantly dealt with so you exist solely on the surface of your life.
You can let yourself go inward and downward on your own accord. That is what I would call truly investing in yourself.
It is possible to let yourself have the nourishment you need before the call for it is forced upon you.
However, this requires that you do something differently than you normally do.
It requires you question all the voices in your head that say: “Not right now! Later.” Or “That thing I want just isn’t for me. It’s for other people, better people, richer people, people with more time and less demanding schedules.” Or “If only I had more fill-in-the-blank (money, time, energy, skinnier body), then I would give myself what I want.”
The voices that give you these excuses are the exact voices that would tell you to just keep on keeping on as you are because it’s cool, you’ll figure it out later. These are the voices that keep you in a life that feels stagnated, stuck, and lacking in nourishment and eventually, normally, ends up in a life-stopping-ly loud wake up call of some sort.
You have to see that these voices are not the voices you will need to listen to if you want to grow, expand, and have more. These voices actually want you stay smaller, less expanded, and still because that is what feels safe.
That’s why expansion generally doesn’t just feel “good”, it also comes with some “Oh shit! This is scary!” Vibes as well. Expansion should be exhilarating, which includes nervousness and a sense of stretching.
Investment in your holding ability for life will require you to stretch your capacity to face uncomfortable situations head on. However, this doesn’t have to equate to force and “earning” it. This can also pertain to how much pleasure, passive nourishment, and wholesome goodness you allow yourself to have and be present with.
SAVOR the retreat is exactly that, an opportunity to stretch your capacity to hold more wholesome goodness in your life.
It’s an opportunity to be fed better than you’ve maybe ever fed yourself.
It’s an opportunity to tune into your body more than maybe you ever have.
It’s an opportunity to let your body lead you maybe more than you ever have.
It’s an opportunity to be held by me while you unwind what is holding you back from letting yourself receive what you already have; the love, the beauty, the connection, and the depth of your life as it is.
It is an opportunity to feel yourself come into right relationship with your own nourishment and fully nourished self.
What would happen if you gave yourself this? What would happen if you said; “Yes. I can have this. I can invest in myself.”?
Message me to have a call about coming to SAVOR ASAP. Only a few spots left.
What it Takes to Invest In Yourself