Taken from this excellent article in Goop Magazine.
I am sharing this with you because I took my first ever Reiki class on Saturday, which consisted of an attunement and some instruction on how to perform Reiki on myself. So much more to learn, but fascinating stuff!
I’m conducting my own personal introvert revolution over here. I am a get-r-done, high-energy perfectionist and I sometimes go go go and then I tend to crash. As a highly sensitive person, I should know my limits. The issue seems to be living within them in a better way.
I can’t handle too much of any one stimuli or I physically start to rebel. I have been noticing more and more that when I listen to my body and spirit telling me to take a break, I am far more resilient and happy if I listen.
I am easily overwhelmed by things like bright light, noise, extreme temperature, or violent TV and movies. Sometimes there’s so much to process that I need to incubate in a slower environment for awhile, and that is ok with me. Carving out the time to let this happen proactively is the difference I’m trying to make. That way I don’t have to back out of things at the last minute.
Stillness print available here
Sometimes these subtle nuances are there to remind us to take care of ourselves. Last week, my edges were especially frayed and so I let myself cancel phone calls and meetings, curl up and take a nap one day, not follow my usual schedule. The shift was immediate. There’s a physical basis to this as well. I learned from reading The Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World (Step-By-Step Guides)
Being your own caregiver is a huge lesson for most of us. We are so good at looking after everyone else, but often we don’t know how to give ourselves a break. I am doing an experiment with myself. I’m trying to plan my day around my intuitive needs and where I am in my physical hormonal cycle, and generally trying to simplify where possible. Today we have some A/C repairmen banging around in the attic and also a sick child at home with me, but to make it easier, I’ve got some soothing music playing and am sitting somewhere very comfortable.
Going forward, I am going to plan my outings into noisy or crowded environments carefully, with built-in breaks or in limited quantities. I am no longer going to feel that there is something wrong with me that I can’t handle something. I’d rather meet you for a quiet chat over tea than come to your birthday party.
Instead of feeling like an odd duck, it dawned on me that maybe being this tender is a strength. Isn’t this the very quality that helps me sense other’s vulnerabilities and moods, connect to my own and others’ feelings, truly see what others sometimes miss, let alone be creative and intuitive and artistic? I can’t do this if I’m tired or hungry or exhausted. I can only tune in to these traits when I take care of myself. It’s almost like I have to guard this special quality and not let it get too overwhelmed that it runs and hides.
“The highly sensitive person has an important mission, which is to serve as a balance to the more aggressive behavior of some of the non-HSPs who advocate a less than nurturing policy toward humans, animals, and Mother Nature.” (This is not intended to be a slight against “non-HSPs.”)
So others can go to the large gatherings and the crowded restaurants, the baseball games and the concerts. I will go only when I know I can handle it, when I “can anchor myself to a ship of tranquility, [when I] won’t be tossed about by the waves of stimulation.” And when I don’t think I can, I’ll know I’m not missing out because I am protecting something special.
It’s time for another Photo-Heart Connection! Haven’t done it before? You can learn more about how to find your Photo-Heart Connection here. Kat talks about “making a commitment to connect art with heart” and invites anyone and everyone to add photography or artwork to the monthly connections.
It’s very much unlike me, but I didn’t take many photos in July besides kid ones. This is one of a handful that I snapped on our cruise at the beginning of the month. My absolute favorite few minutes of the entire month consisted of just me and the wide expanse of water as I sat alone on our cabin’s balcony and marveled at how the sun made tiny twinkling sparkles on the water’s surface that were gone just as quickly as they appeared.
It was a moment of pure understanding. Understanding our transience. Understanding our insignificance, and yet also knowing that there is magic and pure love that is unseen to us that gave us life and sustains us. Understanding what peacefulness feels like.
Hello friends! July has flown by somehow. What have you filled it with?
I started the month by writing about the need for slowing down (creating room for possibility) and I’m still working on tuning in to my needs.
I am spending my time on good things. I made a few little books of our recent travels and that reminded me that I’m really behind on my daughter’s memory books. Before ordering, I have been condensing her 2012 book from 300 pages to more like 90, which will be more enjoyable to look through. Then I hope to work on 2013 and 2014. How delightful it would be to be caught up! I am also making a book of her “artwork.”
I have been actively planning the curriculum for the Sunday School class I’ll be teaching in the fall. I’ve been meeting friends for lunch to catch up. I’ve been reading a lot since I got my kindle. You’ll notice I haven’t done much art lately, but my daughter and I have been having fun in the afternoons doing little art projects. I did make a new header for my friend Renee.
Thank you to those of you who have shared your lists of what makes you happy. It’s so fun to read about what delights you!
This month of Project Light Year was about abundance as a way of being. I was reminded that my constant focus on my lack of time is my main problem. Flitting from checking e-mail to working on scrapbooks to paying bills (all while making more lists) is not that effective.
So I’ve been trying to focus on feeling relaxed and expansive as far as time goes. I spend a few moments each day envisioning my ideal day, which usually involves two main chunks of time on one or two projects, with little tasks thrown in here and there. Then, I am more focused and can plan next steps much more effectively. Most important, it has helped me celebrate how much time I actually already have.
* * * * *
This is such a fun book to read! Composers, painters, writers, philosophers, scientists… they DO have their quirks. I enjoyed this one so much. It is fascinating how these very productive and successful people shaped their days.
Filled with 52 simple and easily doable ways to find peace. All it takes is practice… “basically practice pulls weeks and plants flowers in the garden of your mind.” Our brain has a negativity bias which is really unfair… but if you compensate for it by actively looking for the good, you will feel happier, less stressed, etc. Staying connected with others and having good relationships is a vital part of our experience. Each principle comes with a “how” section. For example, for gratitude, he explains how to look around you and notice your many gifts, accept them, and recognize the benefits.
Oh yes, mine is intense! I think this book may have saved my sanity! I understand my daughter so much better now and can value and appreciate her qualities rather than be frustrated by them and resist them. I am better able to predict problems and advocate for her. I know I’m a much better mother to her now because of this book. Now I need to read her bedtime book.
Mothering and how it transforms us. I never really thought about just how many changes we go through as women once a child enters your life. It’s an enormous shift that Lerner considers phase by phase.
An intriguing story about a single mother reconstructing her teenaged daughter’s life, sifting through her emails, texts, and social media to piece together the shocking truth about the last days of her daughter’s life. I didn’t love most of the characters or the story, but I HAD to know what happened, so I read it quickly because it’s only at the very end that we get the truth about what happened in this crazy teenage world of private high school with such a high amount of pressure to fit in and be accepted.
This is a dual timeframe story about war and love; one in WW1 and one in 2001. The title refers to a painting with an unresolved past and the many lives it has touched. I thought the WW1 story was beautiful. I really felt like I was in the main character’s shoes the entire book.
Just like Do One Thing above, this book is also about shaping our neural pathways and just beginning and about how to remain stable and yet flexible, coherent and yet able to embrace complexity.
Change happens in four areas: self-observation, relating to others, stress, and personal narrative. These are areas that we can work on ourselves.
“So how do we stay sane? We can develop our faculties of self-observation so that we can have the capacity to observe even our strongest emotions, rather than being defined by them, allowing ourselves to take in the bigger picture.”
This is Southern reading at its best. The story is divided into three narratives connected by food and recipes. I enjoyed the way the stories came together in the end. The characters are tender and the writing is superb.
* * * * *
“Intimacy arises not from any attempt to take the pain away, but from a living through together; not from a working out, but from a being with. Trust and closeness deepen from holding and being held, both emotionally and physically.”
* * * * *
What have you been reading lately? And are you on Goodreads? I’d love to connect there.
It was probably just a matter of time. I held out for 7 years.
A surprising benefit for me is that little “4 hrs 35 mins left in book” at the bottom of the screen. That kept me from reading into the wee hours of the morning last night. It is a stark reminder that if I kept reading, I wouldn’t be finishing the book until 2:30am, which does sound ridiculous. Of course, I never set out to stay up that late… it just seems to happen. 🙂
I know I am not the first bibliophile to write about this, so I’ll keep it short and simple. I still don’t know if I will ever stop reading actual bound and printed paper books. I love so many things about the experience of reading them. But this could be good as an additional way. Mr. B pointed out that it’ll be great to reclaim the space in our suitcase previously occupied by loads of books and magazines. We shall see…
Do you use an e-reader? Do you use the Kindle app or have a Kindle or Nook?
Yesterday morning was rainy… with dreamy lighting coming from our kitchen window. It was the perfect opportunity to experiment with the back lighting prompt in Kim’s Be Still class. I applied her kk_enlightened texture at 70% soft light. (It was my daughter who noticed the heart shape.)
