RANT: Yesterday I went for a walk on the beach with my friend, Kalona. Near the end of our walk, we sat on a bench under some ironwood trees and sat there yeow-yeowing, watching the wind on the waves and the evening sky draw closer.
As we spoke, Kalona said something I hear from a lot of people. I want to share my response with you, because I have a feeling it might help you let go of some of the pressure you feel in your life.
We were talking about health, and she said, “I’m not taking care of myself.”
Ask yourself how many times you say that, or hear friends say it. Usually, there is a smiling but determined statement right afterwards having to do with intending to ‘do better.’
I could feel that there was a deeper truth she was missing. So I said to her, “Let’s rephrase that to be more kind to you.”
Kalona has come a long way–only a few years ago, she started a little fledgling business doing weddings with a Hawaiian style for people from all over the world. Now she has one of the most popular and most unusual wedding services in Hawaii.* It’s been such a pleasure to see her progress, and move right through what, at the time, seemed like impossible impasses before.
I felt like she was undermining herself and all the hard work she had done on herself by saying that she wasn’t taking care of herself. Because in my experience of her, both as coach and as her friend, it’s easy to see that she constantly looks to upgrade every aspect of her life on a continual basis. I’ve never known her not to want to do better, on all levels.
So I asked, “What if you said something like, I’m doing the best I can to take care of myself well?
“That way, you acknowledge that you ARE doing the work you’ve decided to do, and the level at which you want to do it. Now it sounds more truthful, and you’re not negating everything you’re doing or have done. It also leaves wide open space for possibilities and improvements at any time.”
As she thought about that, I could see her face gain color and her energy smooth out. Ahhh! Good! That’s how we want it, right?
Our early conditioning has us accustomed to being criticized, dissed, cut down, beat up, put down, yelled at or told what to do. But why complain about ‘bad’ childhoods, or ‘bad’ experiences? Why take on the same role inside yourself as that nasty step-father, that angry husand/wife, that mean teacher or ugly bully
you used to get beat up by?
See, here’s the cool thing. Using tapping or other energy practices, we have the opportunity to shift all those mean experiences. We can take all the energy we were using to repress our feelings about it, all the energy that we were putting into anger, resentment, blame, shame and pain, and clean it up so we can use it for fantastic creativity.
It’s not that we ’should’ have had great childhoods, or that we ’should’ have had everything easy and perfect. I believe that what is more important is to take each part of what we didn’t like about our past, about our lives, and recondition ourselves in the image of our own highest dreams.
To reclaim the energy ‘lost’ to old traumas and day-by-day energy drain.
To take the experiences from our childhood and life itself and re-perceive ourselves within them so that we can feel the most expanded and capable.
It’s so important to speak to our inner selves with kindness and expansiveness, colorful vision and rich encouragement–like talking to a little kid who is learning something new.
(This, of course, is where tapping comes in. How much easier tapping has made things for us! See EFTinEveryHome.com for FREEbie info on tapping.)
So when you hear that critical edge sneak into your inner conversation, stop and tap on it until you can acknowledge that: yes, you really are doing the very best you can do right now, and that, yes, you are always looking to amp it up–and that right now it’s the best that’s possible–and hey, good for you!
Be kind to yourself. Your world starts and ends with you. You’re the best you on the planet, the only you on the planet. If you don’t love yourself first, and open and hold the space for that, who else can?
OK, rant over! I send love to you–love yourself back, OK? If it really is true that We Are All One, then there’s only One here. Love all of yourself.
aloha -
Angela
p.s. Oh yes–here’s where you can find Kalona’s beautiful website: ARainbowinParadise.com. She does traditional, custom and Hawaiian style weddings, vow renewals and commitment ceremonies!
Comments are open….
Recent Comments