Flight of the Hummingbird - Day 118 & 119 – 8-2 and 8-3-2021 - Self-Care

I haven’t missed a blog post in a while. Today is my 57^th birthday and yesterday I needed a day of self-care; it is moving into today.

We are going through a lot. We are all going through some type of change. I would venture to say that most of us are grieving one thing or another.

Grief, I am finding, is a huge part of self-care. Yes, taking the occasional bath or getting a massage is huge, but when we allow ourselves to grieve, it is giving ourselves an opportunity to release those emotions that hold us back.

What do I mean when I say, “hold us back?”

The emotions that we carry are actually stuck emotions from mostly an entire lifetime. When we were children, we didn’t really understand our emotions when they came up, so unless we had emotionally healthy parents, we stuffed them inside.

That can only last for so long and they will then either come out as rage to another or at ourselves as self-hatred or self-sabotage or any number of life depleting things we can do to ourselves.

Until we learn to recognize these patterns for what they are and not to think or believe situations or emotions are our fault or that we shouldn’t express our emotions, we will feel stuck. We will also feel depressed, anxious, unloved, lost, etc.

So, sitting with myself yesterday was so important for my understanding of what is going on in my life. Things happened and being able to just allow the emotions to rise up was not easy, it was necessary. A lot is happening in the world and a lot of us are feeling, at the minimum, unsettled and at a maximum, fear.

Jean-Luc Picard, from Star Trek said it very well, “Fear is an incompetent teacher.”

Our lives are run on fear. We are taught by fear and anything that goes on negatively in society feeds the fear. It is certainly not easy to function in life when you are in fear mode. Life becomes a constant threat and sometimes there is no place to turn. Our stress response systems get stuck, and we are in hypervigilance and anxiety mode often, if not all the time.

The biggest sickness, I see around, is fear.

Consistent self-care, sitting with yourself, re-parenting yourself, setting boundaries, learning to go with the flow are some ways to self-care. Taking a shower or a walk when feeling bad or off, these are other ways to do it.

Do something. If you sit and isolate, it will get worse. Just get moving, even if it is to sit under a tree outside in the sunlight. It is a good idea, though, to move your body in some way to release that pent up energy.

Sometimes we feel lost. I have found that it is by a decision that we will find our way again. Find someone to support you, if only to listen, but find someone who is not in fear because they cannot. They will not be focused on holding your space, they will be focused on what’s going on for them.

I am sharing here, the lyrics to a song that my former partner, a friend and I wrote as Indivinity Music, called, “You’ll Find Your Way.” It was based on a day that I was going through some things and had the support I needed from my partner as we sat outside a food store in the car, just needing to get it all out of me, listening to Rage Against Machine. Now I don’t normally listen to this type of music, but I can tell you it really helps as a guide to get the pent-up energy out.

 

“Stuck in your head screaming in the car, just trying to cope while rolling in the dark,

Hands in the air ‘cause nobody’s there and hoping that somebody will care.

 

You may not know which way to go, feeling like all the doors are closed,

Lift up your head close to the sky, trust in yourself and you’ll get by.

 

Hold on, don’t be afraid, things are getting better livin’ day by day,

Hold on, you’ll be ok, drinkin’ in the Love baby… you’ll find your way.

 

Bringin’ in a little love now

Bringin’ in a little love now

Bringin’ in a little love now… Forevermore!

 

Hold on, don’t be afraid, things are getting better livin’ day by day,

Hold on, you’ll be ok, drinkin’ in the Love baby… you’ll find your way.

 

Hold on,

You’ll be ok,

Hold on,

You’ll find your way.

 

Caroline Rena, Noel Neu, Irvin Arthur – Indivinity Music

I’ve learned to just remember to be gentle with myself and give myself care because I deserve it. We all do.