fbpx
I Gift You Permission To Hit The Pause Button In COVID

I Gift You Permission To Hit The Pause Button In COVID

by | May 9, 2020 | Law Of Attraction

It takes a Conscious Choice to Nurture Self during the Lockdown

 

It’s a huge thing to stay at home during this pandemic COVID period. Governments around the word have locked down communities in an effort to pause the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

“Stay Home. Stay Safe. Save Lives.” has been the key message from the government, but it is so different from what we know to be normal.

The first and third instructed tasks can be ticked. But after a month of social isolation, the reference to staying safe at home may just be wearing a little thin for some.

Some would call this pandemic a global crisis. There’s nothing I can do about that in my personal world. That said, I am choosing to reframe this period of time as an opportunity to detach from the external world and focus on myself. That’s a little easier for me in some ways since I’ve been socially distancing since December due to treatment for cancer.

I truly believe this unique period is a rare gift of time that we have been granted. One can only hope that we will never see this in our lifetime ever again, and it hasn’t been seen since the great depression.

Some in our community are taking social distancing in their stride and simply modifying their daily routines to be able to juggle working from home, homeschooling their kids, as well as leaving the family home for limited and socially distance based exercise.

Others are feeling incredibly confined and restricted and it’s obvious from their social media posts, that life is very uncomfortable right now. For these people, it is perhaps a little scary for what life will be like after COVID.

You can tell who feels confined because they are complaining about it. And not every now and then. They are ranting as loudly as possible. Endlessly in fact, to whoever will listen. Their behaviour is their expression of feeling lockdown is unreasonable and irrational. They have become inflexible and feel hard done by.

For some who are isolated at home, they are confronted with all the things their busy life allowed them to avoid, and now the walls are feeling restrictive. These are the people who share pictures and stories of wine being consumed whilst schooling their children.

There are others bragging about three days in their pyjamas! What this picture is really saying is they are not coping and can’t find strategies to even choose to shower every day.

Let’s take the basic act of getting out of bed and showering. You wouldn’t have thought twice about not doing this when leaving the house — would you? Now during social isolation, there is an apparent acceptable lack of self-care for some.

Mindfully choosing to care enough for yourself to bathe and getting dressed should smell true to you (and to those you live with). Failing to undertake these small self-respecting tasks is a lack of intention towards self if you aren’t prioritising enough time in your day for a four-minute shower and fresh clothes.

Ask yourself what message are you sending yourself? It’s one thing to make a conscious decision to not bathe, perhaps because you haven’t exercised this day. It’s even ok to bum around for a day in your pj’s.

But if you simply can’t be bothered, is it time to ask yourself is everything ok?

 

Another example and yet subtle version of lack of self-care is binge-watching Netflix and at the same time scrolling through your phone. The perpetual scrolling means you’re not present in anything and simply avoiding the life occurring around you.

It’s perhaps time to ask yourself what do you really need right now?

And when you ask yourself this question, you had better be prepared to fulfil the answer rather than letting the mind be lazy!

When we feel antsy (which is really just a form of anxiety) ask yourself what would make me feel comfortable and safe right now?

Know this. Each of us is fully equipped to deal with what is present in our life. It is a matter of what you choose to do and how you choose to perceive your situation in life which dictates how well you cope.

So what are you choosing in terms of your experiences?

Might life be different if I gave you permission to reframe everything negative inside your head? Consider that done!

 

Here are some tips for easily implementable actions to get you through this lockdown phase.

1. Get dressed. Every day.

Physically changing out of your sleep clothes creates a subconscious neurological response that it’s time to get going. Take action. Remaining in your pyjamas all day is permissible on rainy weekend days or those dates whereby you’ve gifted yourself a mental health break. It’s still a choice to dress.

2 Have a shower.

Regular showering removes bacteria from the skin, which supports the body from infection. There’s also an argument for reduction of body odour, especially for those you are sharing confinement with!

3 Be mindful with your eating.

During the lockdown, it’s really easy to overindulge in everything — because it’s at our fingertips. By all means, have a piece of chocolate. But if you find yourself sneaking back to the fridge a second or third time ask yourself what you perceive you actually need right now?

Is it just because you’re skin hungry and in need of a treat? Or are you stuffing the sugar inside to avoid addressing an actual hidden emotional issue?

4 Exercise. Every day.

This suggestion isn’t rocket science. A simple 20 minute walk outside gifts your body so much. You get exposure to direct sunlight, which enables your body to make vitamin D.

Your body makes dopamine (the feel-good hormone) when you exercise. Regular exercise several times a week is great for your heart health.

Not to brag but this week I have walked a marathon and feel amazing. The exercise high has been so rewarding that I’ve decided to enter an event later in the year.

5 Step out of the house. Get a Nature Fix.

Every time you go outside, you gift yourself an automatic change in scenery to stimulate your senses. Take a different route each time to keep things interesting. Japanese medical practitioners even prescribe forest therapy for those who are stressed out and anxious!

Consider timing yourself on a specific route so that you can see your physical endurance building each time you go out. It’s great for encouraging a positive mindset. So hug a tree!

6 Reframe any negative self-talk.

Be mindful of your internal dialogue. Rather than punish yourself for thinking something negative, I grant you permission to ‘reframe’. The minute you choose to reframe a negative into a positive, you literally switch neurology pathways out of stress patterns and into solution-seeking neural responses.

You have nothing choosing to reframe and invite more positive into your life.

7 Recipe for relaxation.

Figure out what supports relaxation for you. Is it taking a bath? Perhaps some yoga or meditation? Is it self massage? Reading a book. making cubby houses with the kids. Playing board games. Online chats with friends. It could be as simple as not watching the news as often.

The list is endless but are you open to opportunities?

Let me be crystal clear, when I talk about relaxation, I’m talking about physical relaxation, emotional detachment and achieving mental clarity (ie no monkey chatter going on inside your head).

During the lockdown, you need to ensure that you are detaching from the confinement and allowing yourself to take advantage of the naturally slower pace of social distancing.

Take one small action each and every day to nurture yourself on all levels.

8 Break out with pets.

I have two young lab puppies from the same litter, so they do everything together — including being naughty! But I have to say that I can never be mad around these gorgeous creatures. They gift me an enormous amount unconditional love just by placing their heads in my lap.

And whilst I’ve been undergoing treatment for breast cancer, they have been a divine nurturing gift for my daughter. She’s teaching them to sit and stay and they are teaching her to laugh when they lick her. They are gifting her lessons in responsibility and respectful authority.

Pets gift us an instant dopamine fix. Working from home provides us with the perfect opportunity to have our fury therapy bags with us all the time!

9 Use technology to maintain the connection with friends.

Utilise the video technology available to you and video chat with friends and family. I am absolutely loving chatting with friends and seeing their faces at the same time. Book a ‘mate date’ with your friends and family in order to maintain your connections.

Summary

Regardless of your COVID experience, we are all feeling pinch points with respect to the perception of not being able to certain things in our life. I’m gifting you permission to step out of the expected normal and create the life you want.

My Therapist Says There Is No Justice In This World, Only Lessons

My Therapist Says There Is No Justice In This World, Only Lessons

by | May 8, 2020 | Breast Cancer

How to Reframe a shitty experience into Resilience Superpowers

 

This is a challenging story for me to share with you. One of which I am still working through. But on the suggestion by my therapist, I’m breaking down the various anger aspects where I feel stuck.

By minimising each aspect of the larger problem faced, I am increasing my opportunity to reframe and find solutions. Reframing enables me to feel like I can take back my control and power and return to being resilient once again.

After I finish sharing my perception of this experience you may just agree it was pretty ‘sh*tty’. But here’s the thing, I can choose to remain stuck in the sh*t, or I can choose to reframe various aspects to enable my healing.

If I hadn’t I may have ended up a dribbling mess huddled in the corner of the room, sucking on my thumb — you might call this a hot mess.

The Sh*it That Hits

 

You would think a breast cancer diagnosis would be traumatic. And it is, believe me. I likened the diagnosis phase to the ‘’ and you didn’t see it coming. It’s much like when you’ve been travelling and get Bali belly.

Your guts grumble with stress, in terms of digesting the fact you have cancer. Your body goes into flight or fight, and to be able to run away from the perceived sabre-toothed tiger, your body wants to eliminate all of the faecal matter inside you. This means that every time you even think about sneezing, it could result in something far worse. So you’re on tenterhooks the entire time.

, I reframed using breath meditation. I journaled out all the fear-based emotions. I researched a lot and asked a tonne of questions with my medical teams. I empowered myself with what the diagnosis meant, and then drafted a treatment plan moving forward.

But in my cancer chapter that wasn’t the worst or shittiest part.

The ‘Shit a Brick’

 

If you think a mastectomy would be shitty you would be spot on. I liken this to the .

You know it’s coming. It’s building up over time and there’s nothing you can do to avoid what’s coming. It’s painful and difficult to pass. It requires slow deep breathing and concentration. And takes time to recover. Afterwards, you feel like there’s a piece of you missing.

and prepare for surgery, I reframed by visualising all the negative emotions I was experiencing into the breast tissue to be removed.

I held a ceremony for myself and thanked my breast for all its gifts I had received until now. I celebrated that I fed my child. I celebrated my big Boosie had lived a magnificent (and larger than life) experience and now it was time for retirement and downsizing to a motorboat worthy booby.

But it still wasn’t the shittiest part of the experience.

The Shitty Splinter

 

The shittiest part of the experience I likened to the splinter in the arse. It’s completely unexpected and pokes you hard. Just like using an old toilet and remembering how uncomfortable it used to be, having a shitty experience like this digs up all your old trauma — that you thought you’d dealt with.

Any experience that you liken to so to speak, means that there is no buffer from the odour of the shit. This means the emotions are right there in your face, much like flashbacks, panic attacks and anxiety which can’t be avoided. Neither can the smell of shit.

You see when I had my ‘routine’ mammogram, the biopsy driver machine malfunctioned, with the needle still inside my breast — and I was trapped for more than 45 minutes.

My immediate issue was that my shit couldn’t be repaired with a simple reboot of my hard drive like the machine.

I’ve needed to clean the toilet bowl, bathroom and frankly take stock of the entire house and rid it of the stench left behind.

Let me go vomit as my PTSD relives that all over again, and gift you time to let that ‘’ sink in. Trapped inside any machine, laying in a single static position with a body part sandwiched ready for imaging is what I would define a shitty experience. In fact, I’d go as far as to say it’s right up there with the shittiest.

The leftover shit from this entrapment experience is painful and often runs deep like a festering wound. It often requires external assistance to remove the splinter and deal with the festering mess left behind (pardon the pun).

Removing the shitty splinter has been confrontational, and something that I am working through with my therapist, my doctor and loving support from my friends.

Therefore  I sought help when I wasn’t coping. I reach out and ask for support when I’m having a bad day so that I don’t spiral down any further. I allow others to nurture me. I allow myself to be vulnerable so that I can continue to heal.

The ‘Shit Sandwich’

 

I was told the biopsy ‘could’ be uncomfortable. I wasn’t told it would be sadistically excruciating. That was a  to swallow.

The procedure commenced with the administration of the first local anaesthetic. The breast was clamped and the biopsy needle commenced its repeated penetration.

I. FELT. EVERYTHING.

 

I jumped from the pain and moved positions. The machine was halted and the staff re-administered more local. They expressed their frustration at having to disrupt their testing process.

The additional and unwanted mouthful of the shit sandwich arrived when desperate staff repeatedly administered local anaesthetic on more than five occasions to manage my pain and stop me squirming.

The reflection with my therapist, of this procedure, identified I had disassociated from my body and gone into survival mode with this shit, especially when the machine continued to jam with me still confined within.

Believe me when I say that when I was finally able to roll over and sit up, on the procedure table, I told the staff in no uncertain terms what I thought of their briefing before we had started. That was after I had stopped shaking and crying hysterically.

There was no one in the room who hadn’t taken a bite of that shitty sandwich and enjoyed that experience. None. We were all traumatised.

I was and still am infuriated. So there’s more shit to work through. I’ve had to break it down bit by bit, just to get to this point.

I continue to utilise a visualisation technique when I meditate. I grant permission to my subconscious to get creative and show me where I’ve stored the unwanted frustration, anger and rage. I allow myself to experience what this emotion feels like and I then visualise flushing that shit down the toilet.

 So I’ve banged a foam bat onto a pillow and screamed as I tapped into and released some of that rage. I nearly threw my back out a couple of times, but the release was so worth it.

The Simple Shitty Shit

 

Prior to undergoing the follow-up invasive testing, I expressed my concerns about excess mammogram screening and my preference for manual biopsy. That was dismissed, and twelve radiation images later they still couldn’t get the film they wanted. So they switched machines to enable the biopsy to be taken. We know how that shit went down.

Lying on your side with your breast compressed as flat as the machine can take it (which equates to bloody painful) and your free arm draped over your chest is probably the most uncomfortable position I have ever laid.

It’s taken more than 4 months of PTSD flashbacks just to be able to lie on my left side again without perceiving that trapped sensation. Ultimate shit.

To deal with flashbacks, I attempt to visualise flushing that shit by acknowledging the vision isn’t real right now. I remind myself it is just a connection to a point in time. I use breathing exercises to calm myself which often leads to reiki induced meditation. There’s always crying after one of these episodes so I’m usually purging out emotions into a tissue or my journal or a combination of the two!

The Stinky Shit

 

Prior to commencing this experience, I had reiterated to each staff member that I had issues with being naked in front of strangers. You see I wasn’t covered with even a gown or blanket when I was in the cold metallic machine. I’ve talked with my therapist about how I felt vulnerable and exposed, not to mention cold!

It stank that since this incident, I’ve had issues being touched, or even people being in my personal space without experiencing panic and anxiety.

Since this shitty incident, I’ve had multiple surgeries for breast cancer and have commenced treatment. Needless to say, I had a lot of shit to deal with. Working with my medical teams and support network, my resilience is returning. It’s a slow process and one that is forcing me to re-evaluate everything in my life.

As a former law enforcement officer and hospital recertification auditor, I’ve confronted organisation in question in writing, which probably for them will be the shittiest complaint they’ve ever had to deal with. I am pleased to report that they are making some significant changes to their statewide systems and staff training.

It took me more than a month to deal with my emotions enough to write that piece. I had to confront and address my emotions bit by bit. On the other side of lodging that complaint, I see that working through my emotions was an absolute gift for healing, on so many levels.

This piece has formulated just a snippet of my therapist’s homework for me to deal with what I’m calling a shitty experience. My hope and wish for you are that you can take away some of the tools I’ve used to overcome the challenges I have experienced.

Remember we all have shit occur in our lives. How we migrate our healing journey is a choice you too can make to take ownership of your outcomes. You can choose to change and bloom from within.

How To Set Your Goddess Free

How To Set Your Goddess Free

by | May 4, 2020 | Self Development

10 Top Tips to Learn How to Embrace Your Inner Feminine

My life is full of challenges lately. Life feels a little hard at times, and a friend picked me up on an uncurrent within my language and dialogue. I was constantly referring to the masculine traits of battle.

I was disconnected from my feminine. My goddess was clearly in hibernation. My friend suggested I soften into that feminine space and become more consciously mindful of my self-dialogue.

Challenge accepted, but easier said than done.

I have always felt vulnerable at the thought of softening. I had grown up perceiving it was weak to soften into my feminine.

This same friend shared a beautiful story of how masculine and feminine should be equal within. Whilst we are born of a particular sex, each of us has dual traits of both the divine god and goddess within.

My friend reminded me that the planet is comprised of both male and female. The land is represented by the masculine god, and the ocean is the opposite, the divine goddess. Neither can live without the other. They are both dependent on each other, especially at the border edges, to hold each other up. Yet they are very separately independent in their own right.

We know upon a king tide, the angry goddess waves, can erode the masculine shoreline, pulling the land beneath the surface engulfing all the oxygen. This corrosive action is likened to a woman’s wrath, destroying everything in her path until her breath is exhausted and she pauses.

And yet there are times, spaces and places, whereby the waves are gently massaging the warm sandy shoreline like a caress. It’s a dichotomy, a balance if you will.

Conversely, we know the land rises above the sea level, the towering god overlooks the waves and the ocean. The clifftops command demanding respect, especially when they cast a shadow over the sea below.

But here’s the thing. Both land and water rely on each other for survival.

My friend is very eloquent with her phraseology.

Within our Homosapien selves, neither male nor female is more powerful than the other. And yet within our own psyche, like the planet, we too have male and female aspects and traits. Without balancing the two, and knowing how to best utilise those traits we can so easily and unconsciously play favourites and become stuck.

But what happens when life pushes an imbalance of these internal forces? 

 

We shut down access into our heart space.

 

The heart is that sacred space where we access our intuition and higher self language and all-knowing. The heart acts as the balance point between being grounded and accessing our cosmic wisdom.

 

Without free access into the heart space, we are stuck in our heads and all that excessive thinking.

 

When we close ourselves off to the heart space we are shutting down our ability to soften into our true self — unquestionable balance. We can’t flow with life and its opportunities based on our sex-based traits.

My friend told me a story of how the feminine is actually strong and fierce, not weak. When standing in my feminine strength:

  • I do not have to fight, as the masculine would, I merely have to remain grounded in my heart space and connected to my innate wisdom.

  • I do not have to battle to get a result, I merely remain connected within my ‘all-knowing’ (my connection to source if you will) to allow a result to evolve.

  • I do not have to push, I have to surrender to the imbalance and return to my feminine, to achieve the release of tension from the imbalance.

My friend compared the pushing part to faecal matter. Brace yourself before reading the next bit because we laughed quite hard.

 

The more we push the greater the chance of hemorrhoids, yet if we perch and relax nature allows us to do our business.

 

We both laughed hard at that analogy.

Sitting back later the same day I pondered that statement and she is so true. There was much snoopy sniggering as I journaled, recalling our conversation.

“When we try to force sh*t out we strain our own natural design process of opening and closing to the experience of simply surrendering.”- Stacey Herrera

 

What might it truly cost me to surrender and soften?

 

This was the question I asked myself as part of the challenge of softening. After an afternoon of journaling, meditation and chanting, I jotted down some tips to support my own surrender process back to my feminine self.

Thought I’d share them with you.

 

1. Dance your booty off and shake your inner wild thing

When we dance, we access our primal self. We allow our body to surrender to the beat. I find dancing in an open space where I won’t collide with anything helps. I close my eyes and allow my body to express the connection to the music.

We don’t all have the luxury of space right now, so turn on the music that makes you shake your booty, makes you smile, makes you laugh, makes you remember good times.

 

2. Use aromatherapy essential oils

Plant therapy, or herbology, is the formation of the modern pharmacology. Our reference to plant medicine dates back to ancient Egypt! Oils have long been used for their healing and mood-boosting properties.

For further reading about Oils To Awaken Your Goddess.

 

3. Wear calming colours that help you soften — I pink myself silly

Colour therapy is a non-invasive and holistic treatment that brings balance and health to your mind and body. The vibrations of the colour in colour therapy class improve your mood and overall health. Colours are made up of reflected lights that hit our retinas as the wavelengths vibrate.

It is a popular go-to practice for people suffering from depression, stress, and seasonal affective disorder.

I’ll take it a step further and add that wearing the right colours for your skin tones helps you to achieve balance using your natural skin tones and then highlighting and accentuating your strengths.

‘Charms of Life’ discuss purple is effective when strong detoxifying of the body is needed. Its high vibration gives it the ability to purify the body. It can stimulate venous activity and is beneficial for headaches. The red-purple colour range balances the polarities of the body.

Keep it simple. When you look good, you feel good.

 

4. Feast on orange foods which feed the sacral chakra — sex organs

According to ‘You Queen’, orange is the colour that promotes cheerfulness and is therefore useful for lifting up the spirit and reducing depression, apathy and negativity. It stimulates creativity, relieves repressions and increases sexual desire.

Orange is also the colour of the sacral chakra (energy centre) for sexual reproductive organs, resourcefulness and social confidence. The sacral chakra is located just below the navel and where our sensuality centre is located.

Orange-coloured foods are often high in certain carotenoids (antioxidant with pigment) and other phytonutrients (phytonutrients may also enhance immunity and intercellular communication, repair DNA damage from exposure to toxins, detoxify carcinogens and alter estrogen metabolism), which also help with the reproductive system. Eat foods such as apricots, carrots, orange bell peppers, oranges and blood oranges, papaya, pumpkin and winter squash, and sweet potato.

 

5. Ask for hugs and surrender into the embrace

Right now during social distancing, we are skin hungry. The act of hugging induces a calming and relaxing effect because it releases oxytocin! Hugs reinforce the connection between individuals.

Oxytocin is also known as the “love drug”, which calms your entire nervous system and boosts positive emotions. This is why petting your animals is so therapeutic.

A good hug produces oxytocin which lowers your blood pressure, which especially helpful if you’re feeling anxious. It lowers your cortisol (the stress hormone), enabling a higher quality of sleep.

My research for this piece had me in stitches with some documented types of hugs, and I shall let your imagination go wild. The bear hug, polite hug, one-way hug (awkward!), intimate hug (yes please), buddy hug (can’t wait to see my posse), and the simple back hug!

 

6. Masturbate!

Now before the snoopy sniggering commences, we all know that gooey relaxed feeling we have after we cum. But there is actual science that promotes masturbation for health, relaxation and general well-being.

Some of the general health benefits of masturbation may include that it:
relaxes your muscles.

  • helps you to fall asleep

  • promotes the release of the brain’s opioid-like neurotransmitters (called endorphins), which cause feelings of physical and mental wellbeing

  • reduces stress

  • enhances self-esteem

Stacey Herrerra often discusses how regular orgasm softens the tension in the body and clears stagnant energy through release!

 

7. Book a kinesiology session to balance your masculine and feminine energies.

Kinesiology is a stress management modality which utilises muscle monitoring to identify sources of stress in the body. It’s a fantastic and non-invasive method to balance your masculine and feminine energies and the associated patterns through which you access and utilise these sexualised traits moving forward.

 

8. Heart chakra balance

I know myself how it feels when my heart chakra is blocked. I feel like I am stuck in my emotions. I tend to dwell on stuff from the past. I have been known to hang onto grudges or trust challenges. I can feel anxious or overly stressed. I push others away when they offer help, or worse put myself last.

I’ll be writing a blog dedicated to heart chakra soon, but for now, know that you can the following to open and nurture this chakra (energy centre).

  • get into nature

  • meditation with a focus on the heart and loving self

  • hang with your peeps

  • give yourself permission to feel and release through journalling

  • be grateful for all in your life

  • do yoga to open the heart

 

9. Chant

According to ‘Spirit Voyage’, when combining sound, breath and rhythm, the chant channels the flow of energy through the mind-body circuit. The result is an adjustment of the chemical composition of our internal states and regulating brain-hemisphere imbalances.

By balancing the nervous system, chanting regulates the chronic stress and tension that is the norm for many people in today’s hyper-stimulated lifestyle. And by balancing the endocrine system, chanting normalizes hormone production, which balances our moods and overall sense of well-being.

Try chanting OM, Om Nama Shivya, Om Mani Padme Hum to achieve the effect. Again, visit YouTube for accompaniment.

 

10. Meditate

We protect our heart space like a panic room, shelter ourselves from perceived hurts and pain.

‘Headspace’ discusses meditation as “we can build up areas of our brain and actually rewire it to enhance positive traits like focus and decision making and diminish the less positive ones like fear and stress. Most importantly, this means there is a possibility to change your brain for the better in a way that is long-lasting.”

In summary, these are just a few of the techniques you can utilise to surrender into your feminine self. Drop me a line of what you do to soften!