This morning I feel odd, as if something is wrong. Yet, I know that actually, I am exhausted. I wonder how often we misinterpret the signals from our bodies – a need for more regular and healthy food or better, deeper rest? I tend to jump to a conclusion that involves someone else, an external search for blame when it is really the fact that I have been working 12 to 15 hour days, have been waking up way too early and pushing through each day without adequate nutrition!
There is nothing wrong with my emotional state, my relationships or anything else. I need more sleep. I need to relax. I need to take care of myself instead of hoping someone will do it for me. I live in this body and it is telling me something. Loudly.
I claim to want conscious relationship, yet I frequently am not listening to myself. There are so many techniques to alleviate the stress and exhaustion – a soak in the tub, a sauna and a relaxing shower, a walk in the Sanctuary listening to the birds and the wind. The birds are singing right now as they start their busy day, flying from tree to grass, seeking delicious tidbits to feed themselves and their little bird children.
I know what I know and yet I always forget. Rejuvenation is easy if we listen and respond to what the body has to say. Feed me. Let me rest. Take me somewhere pleasant and relaxing. Let me walk upon the earth and feel its cool power rising up through bare feet. Eyes, follow the flight of a butterfly. Ears, hear the rustling of leaves. Smell the loam, the faint perfume of flowers. Take a long, deep drink of cool water, laced with minerals from the well.
A massage would be particularly nice.
The Karuna Project is dedicated to the process of growth after loss and how we transform traumatic events through perseverance, insight and creative expression. Karuna means compassion for all. How will you offer compassion to yourself, today?
"I know what I know and yet I always forget. Rejuvenation is easy if we listen and respond to what the body has to say. Feed me. Let me rest. Take me somewhere pleasant and relaxing. Let me walk upon the earth and feel its cool power rising up through bare feet. Eyes, follow the flight of a butterfly. Ears, hear the rustling of leaves. Smell the loam, the faint perfume of flowers. Take a long, deep drink of cool water, laced with minerals from the well."
ReplyDeleteWhile I am late to read this, it particularly resonates as the stressors in my own life increase making me feel as if there is no end coming to them any time soon.
My defenses to not taking care of my own psyche have fallen into the "I can't afford it" territory. What I see in your words is that I have ignored the obvious of simple, in the moment things that I can/should do for a temporary respite that just might give me the internal fuel to get through the recent course of events a mite more gracefully.
Thank you for that gift.
I tend to fall into the "I don't have time for ME" trap. But chaos creates more of the same and if we don't stop, tend to our own stress, it just compounds and creates more. When I lived in the City in the early 1980's I would get "sick" every three months and have to take a day or two to sleep, regroup. It took several cycles of this for me to realize that my body was giving me a strong message - slow down and perhaps, get out of this environment.
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