What are yours?
If any of the themes below resonate with you, I’d love to hear from you.
with love ✨, CATHERINE
Observations on moving, breathing and being. These are mine.
I’ve been writing them down since 2020.
I took a long pause. I’m back now.
On trust
I met a new friend this week. She and I didn't exchange a word. Well, that's not true. I spoke to her, but she didn't respond verbally herself. Rather, she relied on her instincts—tuning into my tone, my posture, my movements, my energy—to communicate with and respond to me. It was a short-lived friendship. I'll likely never see her again. Yet it stayed with me. It left me ruminating on the notion of trust, of what it takes to trust in someone or something else, on what it takes to trust oneself.
How did my newfound friend know that she could trust me?
On the unremarkable
I sat down this morning to write. (Yes, currently I write day-of. Perhaps that will change. For now…)
My mind was blank. Nothing stood out. No big insight, no big breakthrough, seemingly no big anything.
I thought to myself, “I have nothing to share”.
On self-love affirmations
If we pause to tune inwards to our inner monologue, as happens when we sit on our cushion to meditate, we might begin to become aware of a lot of non-affirming self-talk and other negative chatter that appears to be on a seemingly continuous loop in our mind.
Try it. Sit or stand up straight. Close your eyes if comfortable. Take a few conscious breaths—become aware of your inhale and exhale.
Now become aware of your mind and its endless thoughts. What is it saying right now? Is it using positive or negative language? Is it using affirming or defeating language?
Spend a few more moments here. Okay. Now open your eyes.
How was that?
On knowing oneself
How many of you did the journaling exercise offered last week? It’s fair if you didn’t. It helped us begin to contemplate self-love and what it means, why it’s important and how it’s a challenge for most (if not all) of us.
In case you’re wondering, the questions and prompt are hard! It’s not a surprise if you haven’t done it…yet. It can be challenging to tune inwards and to see, hear and support ourselves.
So let’s practice. Let’s change the context.
Imagine now that you’re sitting with your son, or your niece, or your godchild, and you’re doing this exercise with this young, innocent soul. Would your tone be different? Would you speak more slowly and kindly? Would you offer more space, more pause? Would you accept the answers without preference? Would you allow the feelings without judgement? Would you hold this little person and their experiences with greater acceptance and compassion?
I’m going to guess yes, as I know I sure did when I imagined one of my nieces and nephews and practiced.
How might we start to extend that same acceptance and compassion to ourselves?
We can start by getting curious and learning about ourselves more…
On the journey of self-love
February—the shortest month of the year, even on its longest days. It’s home to American Heart Month* and everyone’s favourite, Valentine’s Day. So it’s as good a month as any to start talking about self-love!
We’ll explore this topic in more detail throughout the month, starting with…
What exactly is meant by self-love?
Merriam-Webster defines it as:
: love of self: such that
An appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue
Proper regard for and attention to one’s own happiness or well-being
Inflated love of or pride in oneself
Okay…we might not want to nurture that last part, but the first two bullets sound like obvious and noble goals!
Why does self-love matter?
On what we think
Our thoughts play a huge role with respect to our perspective on events and life in general. Both cognitive therapy and yoga philosophy discuss the impact thoughts have on our behaviour, acknowledging that they generally precede action. This means that often times, we’re more influenced emotionally by our reaction to something than from that “thing” itself.
Said another way, we often act based on our emotional reaction to something rather than the actual thing. Kind of unhelpful, right?
So…why might we interpret events in unhelpful ways?
A reflection on penning our own life's story
Stories are often created from ignoring the truth of a person, behavior, situation, culture, system and the like. Within our own lives, we allow ourselves to become actors, learning to play our roles quite well within these stories, both understanding and dancing around the often multi-layered, underlying subtext never to be spoken. We proudly wear our costumes and masks. We diligently show up for rehearsal. Occasionally we dare to improvise, exposing contextual moments of truth, often unknown to most, including ourselves. But eventually, as good actors do, we circle back to the story’s original intent so as to arrive at curtain call as expected.
Pause. Re-read if need be.
Life itself is made up of a compilation of these stories…
A reflection on the inner child
Compassion (def.) – sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress, together with a desire to alleviate it
Self-Compassion – directing this compassion towards one’s self
Yoga philosophy* teaches us that our true nature can become imbalanced due to physical, mental and emotional conditions. These may manifest as tightness in our bodies and breath or as feelings of restlessness, worry, helplessness and the like. We can work to reduce or prevent these imbalances through practice—moving, breathing, sitting—learning to nurture attitudes of friendliness, compassion, pleasure and non-judgement. These healing virtues, or “yogic vitamins”, have as much to do with our relationship with ourselves as they do with our relationships with others.
I have struggled over the years with accepting compassion, in particular, as a two-way exchange…
