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 balance
Our bodies are very smart. They’ll spotlight A LOT for us if we just accept the invitation to look inwards and observe.
Are we (or are we not) sleeping well?
Are we eating more (or less) than we normally might?
Are we getting headaches more frequently than before?
On smiling
I’ve been smiling (and laughing) a lot lately. It’s been through connecting to people, places and activities that bring me joy. It’s been through releasing that which doesn’t through journalling, meditating and walking, e.g. Through it all, I’ve turned more inwards than ever before, noticing how “alive” I feel from allowing myself to be in the present moment—smiling and laughing and experiencing that which is around me.
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 the power of choice
How has January already come and gone? It feels like just yesterday when I shared my first post of the year On Beginnings, and here we are on the last Friday of the month, a fifth Friday at that.
I also don’t know how a whole year has already come and gone, either. It seems like a lifetime ago that it was January 29, 2020. And in many ways, it has been. We’re now in a #newnormal, or #nownormal, of a global pandemic that has shaken all aspects of our lives.
This time last year, I was planning my first road trip with my partner, and though a relatively new relationship, I thought it was my forever one. I was coming off the heels of an informal year-end review with my CEO, in which it was mentioned I could be her successor, so while the job was not without its challenges and concerns, I thought it was at least a long-term one. And I still had my buddy of ten years, Pedro (aka, Peter Rabbit), and though I knew his life was not infinite, I sort of hoped he’d defeat the odds.
Not four months later, all that had changed. Pedro had passed ten days after that, my relationship ended three months after that and my job three weeks after that (and COVID-19 had been declared a pandemic some time in-between)…
On the hills we climb
Inspiration can come at many different times and from many different sources. For me, most recently inspiration came on Inauguration Day from the steps of the United States Capitol by way of the words eloquently written and spoken by a young woman born in 1998 in Los Angeles, CA—now a household name, Amanda Gorman.
As did many of us, I found her poetry to be so moving and so in tune with the love and healing messages heard earlier that day from Vice President Harris and President Biden. Within her lines, the ideals of unity, of healing, of grief and of hope echoed loudly.
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?
