Because you're worth it. Yes, you absolutely are!

For the past three weeks consistently, an angel card has come up every week urging us to reward ourselves. Generally the angels will repeat a message because we are not taking it on board. Since this pattern has emerged, I thought I’d explore some of the reasons we sometimes struggle to treat ourselves – and why we absolutely need to.

What I’ve noticed is that when a message about doing something nice for themselves comes up, some people will cite feeble excuses why they “can’t”, and generally these involve a perceived lack of time or money. I’m sorry to sound a bit like your mum, but if you don’t have time to look after yourself, you are doing something very wrong. And the excuse about money doesn’t hold much currency either, because self-love does not need to cost money. But both of these are beside the point. 

What’s really going on under the surface is that many of us don’t understand that we deserve to be looked after – and that that it is our job to bestow that care on ourselves.

To some people, the idea of making time for a pedicure, a yoga class or a nap on a Saturday afternoon seems like a treat that they aren’t entitled to unless they’ve done something special to earn it. And sometimes even when people do understand that it is important to treat themselves, they decide they’ll do that later when they’re not busy… you know… whenever that is...

Guys, we all need to do a better job of treating ourselves to rewards, and this is why. You are a child of the Universe, and therefore entitled to receive love and care. You do not have to earn that love and care, it is your birthright – and you are absolutely worthy of it. In fact, you are so valuable that the Universe has assigned two guardian angels to look after you and guide you – and there’s nothing you could do to get them to leave you. Your chief responsibility in this lifetime is to give love to others – but you can’t give away something that you don’t have yourself. If you are not willing to show love and care to yourself, how can you expect to receive it from anyone else? And actually, if you are not willing to show love and care to yourself, maybe you need to ask yourself some urgent questions about why that is (maybe there are some underlying issues related to self-esteem that you need to address). 

If you take only one thing from this post, let it be this: you do not have to change anything to be worthy of love and care. This does not mean that you don’t have more work to do on yourself and on your relationships (we all do) – but it also doesn’t mean you are not worthy of treats and nourishment right this minute. You are exactly where you’re supposed to be right now, and you’re absolutely deserving of love. It starts with you. 

Making time* for a 45-minute massage may not change your life but it’s a very good place to start.

*Notice I said ‘making time’ not ‘finding time’. No one has an abundance of time – it’s up to you to prioritise the hours that you do have.  

Be here now. In this moment. It's the only one you have

We wish it were Friday already. We wish it were summer still. We wish it were 5pm. We wish it were holidays. We wish it were lunchtime. We wish it were Friday again. We wish we were in Fiji. We wish we were in a house of our own. We wish we were older. We wish we were young again. We wish we were married. We wish we were single. We wish our kids were at school. We wish our kids were babies again. We wish it were Friday again.

We always wish we were in some place, or some moment, other than where we are.

Why do we do that? 

In wishing we were elsewhere, we’re saying to the Universe that what we have is not good enough. But actually, what we have and what we are right now is EVERYTHING. 
It's OK to want more and strive for more - and you absolutely should - but the challenge is to not get so heavily invested in where you want to go that you forget to celebrate  today.

I love this quote from Buddha: "There are only two days of the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow. So today is the right day to love, believe, do and mostly live." 

The struggle to be fully present in the moment, and really making the most of what I have, is a constant theme in my life. I have a very busy mind that’s often consumed with worrying about the future or replaying the past. Neither of these is conducive to being right here, right now. The result is that I am often so immersed in the coming attractions that I miss the full experience of the feature. 

Image by @stealtimeback via Instagram

When I was travelling recently, I realised how much calmer I felt, because I was completely immersed in what was right in front of my eyes. This ability to tune out of the pointless (and often damaging) chatter in my mind and into everything around me is something I want to strengthen in my everyday life. When I stop to appreciate the awesomnity* of my life, it’s like putting a pin in the balloon of my worries, and simultaneously lighting a rocket under my life-satisfaction levels. That’s because I am acutely aware that I have everything I need right now, and that every element of my life is perfectly imperfect. This moment is enough. 

Recently I saw a very moving TED talk by poet Robin Morgan and it really highlighted the beautiful experience of being fully present. Robin, who has Parkinson’s disease, has written some incredibly powerful poems about the process of watching her body slow down. One of the pieces that touched me most is called This Dark Hour. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

***

This Dark Hour

Late summer, 4 A.M. The rain slows to a stop, dripping still from the broad leaves of blue hostas unseen in the garden’s dark. Barefoot, careful on the slick slate slabs, I need no light, I know the way, stoop by the mint bed, scoop a fistful of moist earth, then grope for a chair, spread a shawl, and sit, breathing in the wet green August air.

This is the small, still hour before the newspaper lands in the vestibule like a grenade, the phone shrills, the computer screen blinks and glares awake.

There is this hour: poem in my head, soil in my hand: unnamable fullness. This hour, when blood of my blood bone of bone, child grown to manhood now – stranger, intimate, not distant but apart – lies safe, off dreaming melodies while love sleeps, safe, in his arms.

To have come to this place, lived to this moment: immeasurable lightness. The density of black starts to blur umber. Tentative, a cardinal’s coloratura, then the mourning dove’s elegy. Sable glimmers toward grey; objects emerge, trailing shadows; night ages toward day. The city stirs.

There will be other dawns, nights, gaudy noons. Likely, I’ll lose my way. There will be stumbling, falling, cursing the dark. Whatever comes, there was this hour when nothing mattered, all was unbearably dear.

And when I’m done with daylights, should those who loved me grieve too long a while, let them remember that I had this hour – this dark, perfect hour – and smile.

***

*This is a real word. Don’t you dare google it.

How do you get back up when life kicks you down? Start with your words

It’s hard to pick just one standout quote from Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, an exquisite book I have come back to again and again throughout my adult life, but this one would certainly be among my favourites: “The secret to life is to fall down seven times and get up eight times.”

In less poetic terms: “I get knocked down, but I get up again.” (Thanks for that, Chumbawamba.*)

Picking yourself up again after failure, humiliation and heartbreak is achingly difficult, but very necessary if you want to move forward in your life. What Paulo Coelho is describing so lyrically is resilience.

So that’s the ‘why’; this is the ‘how’. The words you use are extremely powerful when it comes to getting back up when you are down. I know this because science.

There’s a well-known study in which Japanese researcher Dr Masaru Emoto took two identical jars of cooked rice and wrote “thank you” on one, and on the other “you fool”. He had school children say the labels out loud to the jars every day as they walked past. After 30 days the jar that had received positive affirmation was healthy while the one that was abused had become mouldy and rotten. The conclusion: words have the power to affect us on a cellular level, so it’s important to choose positive ones. In the interests of balance, I should probably point out here that the scientific community have been fairly critical of Dr Emoto’s research techniques. Still, the finding is an intriguing one.

Improving my self-esteem has been a real focus for me this year, but what I’m realising lately is that it’s actually self-compassion which is more beneficial to my confidence levels and life successes than self-esteem. And just like Dr Emoto I’m fascinated by the power of words – specifically, how the language I use in speaking to myself (both internally and externally) could play a key role in making me a better me.  

The difference between self-esteem and self-compassion, explains respected US self-compassion researcher Dr Kristin Neff, is that the former often involves us comparing ourselves to other people. Which no one does, obviously… except me and, you know, every woman ever. (And potentially a lot of men too.)

Comparison might briefly boost your self-esteem if you conclude that you’re better than other people in some way... but when you feel like everyone else is doing life better than you, your self-esteem is going to suffer – badly. (Guilty as charged.) Self-compassion, on the other hand, doesn’t hinge on you feeling special or different – all it depends on is you treating yourself like a human being who deserves love and care.

Here’s what happens: when you criticise yourself, cortisol (the stress hormone) is released in your body. The resulting stress lowers your mood and motivation. So basically, criticism is being absorbed by your cells**. Yikes! But if, instead of criticising yourself, you can pick yourself up in times of darkness and reassure yourself that the failure you’ve suffered doesn’t diminish your value as a human being, you’ll be better able to get back up and try again, says Dr Neff.

In other (my own), words, kicking your own arse only works if you do it with kindness.

Perhaps this could go some way to explaining why so many women struggle to lose weight in the long term. If you slip up with your exercise and diet plan, then start beating yourself up and call yourself fat, you’re unlikely to get back on track with your weight-loss journey the next day.

I don’t know what you guys take from these findings, but for me, it’s made being nice to myself a far greater priority. It’s looking very much to me like being my own best friend is the secret to getting back up again when life kicks me down. This is a friendship worth making time for.

*Here’s a Chumbawamba throwback, because I know you want it. (Let’s just overlook the fact that the song’s about drinking, ’kay?)

**Did you know we have more than 50 billion cells in our body? Whoa! I learned this at a recent seminar by wellness guru Dr Libby Weaver. 

What moving to a new house taught me about letting go

There’s nothing quite like moving house to make you realise you own far, far more possessions than you actually need. I shifted to a new address last week (a revolting process, always) and I was shocked, as I always am, by how much stuff I own… and feel attached to, for reasons I can’t really explain. There were items that are currently useful, items that may be useful in the future and items that are not useful at all but are lovely. As I gathered up and disposed of the items that didn’t fall into any of these categories, I wondered how I can dispose of all the other clutter that’s taking up space in my life – the emotional baggage.

About 10 years ago I went to a Christmas Eve mass in Bondi, which is a suburb of Sydney with a high percentage of travellers, particularly from the UK and Ireland. In his sermon the priest talked about how many backpackers he sees around the neighbourhood carrying their life’s possessions on their shoulders, and he likened this to the emotional baggage so many of us carry around that weighs us down. This is the only sermon I’ve ever heard that I have never forgotten – and since I was forced to attend church services for the first 16 years of my life, I’ve heard a LOT of sermons. He talked about how if we have faith in something, we have everything we need. There’s no cause for carrying around worries. This is the beautiful and alluring promise of spirituality, in all forms: peace. No matter who or what you believe in, if it brings you peace, hold on to it.

When the priest described the burden of emotional baggage in such simple terms, releasing it sounded simple too. But if you’ve read even one post on this blog, you’ll know that my belief in angels and the Universe and goodness and love and human kindness have not shielded me from moments of worry, fear or despair. That’s because I am human. (Just on that note, I would recommend you steer clear of any spiritual guru or blogger who claims they have eliminated these emotions from their lives, and promises that you can too. Utter delusion.) And like every other human I know, I have baggage. And yes, it’s weighing me down. 

Here’s a popular saying that pops up on Instagram from time to time: Life is a delicate balance of holding on and letting go. Like, I suspect, most people, I have a tendency to quit at times when I need to hold on, and to stubbornly clutch onto the destructive old stories and the limiting beliefs that I need to release. As previously mentioned, I am human.

There’s a lot I need to let go of right now. And as it’s the super moon, and there’s an eclipse, and a blood moon, and a bunch of other (apparently) VERY SIGNIFICANT astrological portents I don’t really understand, it seemed like a good time to do a quick stocktake of my emotional baggage. It wasn’t a long list, but some of the items were fairly weighty – and many were coated in layers of dust. These include, but are not limited to, my regret over my mediocre career and my ongoing guilt at living far away from my family. None of what I listed is serving any purpose, except making me feel crappy, which isn’t all that useful. Some of this stuff is old and I’m ready to ditch it; some of it needs further processing first. But what if I could just gently ease my backpack straps off my shoulders, place the burden on the floor and walk away? What would that feel like? What would it be like to be so light?

I don’t think I can ever clear away ALL of the suitcases or ditch my backpack but I think that by having awareness of the areas where I’m weighed down, I can start to unpack them gradually. For example, when I notice I’m beating myself up about my lack of professional success (yet again), I feel better equipped to talk myself out of that negative spiral before it snowballs into full-scale self-sabotage.

I do think that sometimes we can continue unhelpful thought patterns even though we’ve long since outgrown them – because they’re comforting in some way. A bit like how I kept drinking beer for years after I had adopted a gluten-free diet – even though beer is loaded with gluten. I kept drinking it because the habit was familiar. Earlier this year I swapped out beer for red wine and the difference to my stomach has been remarkable... as I had known it would be. So why hadn’t I stopped years before? Sometimes thoughts and habits that are unhelpful, or downright destructive, are comforting because they’re familiar. It’s not until you make a point of clearing them away that you remember what it’s like to feel freer, lighter, better.

What about you. Is there something old and heavy that you’re ready to clear away? 

Deluded much? Maybe it's the third eye chakra

Ever seen a hopelessly untalented contestant audition for The X Factor and wondered, ‘how can they possibly think they can sing?!’ That’s delusion – and it’s something we all suffer with at various points in our lives. Sometimes delusion can be caused by a block in the third eye chakra, which is the energy centre all about perception and intuition.

The ‘third eye’ is a term commonly used to refer to psychic ability, which is something we all possess to various levels. In almost every angel card reading I do, a message will come through about trusting your intuition. That’s because we all have a direct line to the Universe, and through that we’re given all the information and answers we could possibly need. But our brain just loves to interfere with these messages and tell us that we’re being ridiculous or we’re imagining things. Ensuring your third eye chakra is balanced is one way you can make sure you receive those messages clearly.

Imagination is associated with the third eye chakra, so people in creative industries in particular will benefit strongly from keeping this chakra in balance.

Memory is also highlighted in this chakra, so people who have buried, or are tortured by, unpleasant memories may experience third eye chakra blocks.

While the heart chakra’s enemy was grief and the throat chakra’s adversary was lies, the third eye chakra’s challenge is illusion, or a false sense of belief. If the third eye chakra is in balance we’re able to perceive things as they really are. We’re able to use our intuition to make good choices. We remember our dreams and instinctively understand their significance. We’re able to use visualisation to manifest what we want. We’re also able to detect what isn’t being said by people – in other words, an ability to read people’s body language and elicit meaning from the tone of their voice. We recognise the beauty in our jobs, our relationships and our bodies instead of wishing they were something else.

(Image: the third eye chakra symbol)

When the third eye chakra is deficient, you might display these traits:

* Poor memory

* Lack of imagination

* Denial of present circumstances

* Excessive scepticism

When the third eye chakra is excessive, you might experience:

* Delusions of grandeur

* Obsessions and fantasising

* Difficulty concentrating

* Illusions

* Nightmares

To bring the third eye chakra into balance, meditation and rest are essential. You could also try keeping a dream journal beside your bed, and writing down key themes from intense dreams when you wake up; this helps you notice patterns and messages from your intuition. For yoga types – resting child’s pose and fish pose are helpful.

****

Read my posts about the other chakras here:

Base chakra

Sacral chakra

Solar plexus chakra

Heart chakra

Throat chakra

If you’d like to work with me to heal any of the issues in this article, you can book energy healing sessions here. More information about how I work is available here.