Posts Tagged ‘self-love’
Slowing Down to Speed Up
Posted on: March 26, 2014
I’ve been going, going, going – both outwardly with all of the activities I named above, and also with deep inner work. While I do my best to also simply enjoy life, I also am constantly on a path of personal and spiritual growth.
While I think I’ve been doing fairly well at staying centered and not rushing, apparently I needed to slow down even more: yesterday I sprained my ankle. And this morning, my neighbor called me to tell me that I have a flat tire on my car. Hmmm.
Luckily, my ankle isn’t too bad – after all, my coach training program starts in mere days! But it was a message to look at how I’m operating.
It’s easy to subconsciously hold the belief that moving quickly, to grow our businesses, means that we have to be stressed and anxious, or even have a packed schedule. This really isn’t true. In fact, most people procrastinate a lot (which is really a block that can emerge due to various reasons, such as fear that we won’t succeed, the fear of rejection, or out of perfectionist tendencies). and don’t use their time well. Or, we can waste time Web-surfing or on Facebook – which feels as if we’re productive, when in fact our minds are just busy.
In fact, creating extra space, and slowing down, is a form of self-care that allows us to really get things done. This nurturing of the parasympathetic nervous system lets us prepare to take action. That’s right – it’s actually a functioning of the nervous system. We need down time in order to then be ready for action (or, a the sympathetic response). Incidentally, with speaking, publicly or otherwise, a pause functions the same way: we need silence to be able to hear the words better. And we need to take a pause to get ready to really move. Sometimes this is a moment; sometimes it’s a year of self-development and preparation, or focusing on other things.
Assuming you’re ready to get things moving sooner, are a few suggestions, to implement if you’re not doing them regularly:
- Meditate. Do whatever practice works for you, or even just contemplate the sky.
- Go for walks in nature. Nature energy rejuvenates, and provides space for action.
- Move your body. Get out of your head, and just enjoy kinesthetic movement – be it dancing, exercise, heightened bodily awareness while doing the dishes, or other somatic techniques.
- Laugh. Or, cry. Take breaks to just feel and express what’s needed.
By taking these moments to slow down and get present, you can then get ready to really move into action, and use your time more efficiently when working… and make sure you’re spending more time fully enjoying your life.
As for me, my ankle is already getting better – but, long-distance healing is very welcome. I can’t take those walks outside for a bit… but my dish-washing includes a new dance move!
How do you want to slow down? What works for you? Please comment below.
Public Speaking Tip: Self-Love
Posted on: November 18, 2013
Every Saturday morning that I’m in town, I walk over to the farmer’s market near where I live (a cute neighborhood in Oakland, California, right by a lake). I love buying organic fruits and vegetables, in season, straight from the people who grow them – and have gotten to be friends with some of the vendors too.
At the farmer’s market, I’ve made it a regular practice to buy flowers. Sometimes I see a glint in a passerby’s eye, a “knowing look,” wondering what lucky woman is getting them.
But they’re for me. That’s right: every week I buy myself flowers. Sure, if I’m dating someone, she may be getting flowers too. 🙂 But I first buy for myself the color and arrangement that I intuitively feel will nurture me that week. And when I look at them across from my desk over the coming days, I feel kindness toward myself.
It’s a self-love practice.
Self-love is one of the most important things we need to find confidence – in life, and certainly as speakers.
As you know, we are our own biggest critics. Which means that we’re generally the ones getting in our own way, and stopping ourselves from enjoying life and appreciating our successes. For example, many speakers get angry at themselves when they make a mistake.
Have you ever had a speaking engagement, or something else with high stakes, where it mostly went well… except for that one thing didn’t go quite right? Did you fixate on that one little issue, and blow it out of proportion? Or, did you notice it, take note of what to adjust for next time, and then appreciate all of your hard work as well as everything that went well?
Yes, it’s possible to do that! But it takes practice, and changing our orientation around what happens when things don’t go as planned.
One of the most essential aspects of speaking, and confidence, is our relationship to ourselves. Instead of being self-critical, could you be kind to yourself? Become your best friend, instead of your worst critic?
For some, self-love feels like a tall order. So I often start my clients off with generating compassion instead, using a compassion meditation that begins to change their response to themselves. This is a repatterning of self-destructive thoughts and feelings that, unfortunately, we pretty much all do. Your goal is to be able to be kind to yourself when something doesn’t go right – when speaking, or in life.
There’s much more to the topic of dealing with “making mistakes” (if there really is such a thing), including more fully trusting the flow of life. And we can develop greater capacity for handling whatever arises – because with public speaking (and everything else, for that matter), it will never quite go as we expect! Still, generating lovingkindness toward ourselves is a pretty great place to start.
So, whether you buy yourself flowers, do a metta/compassion/lovingkindness meditation, or another practice, please: be kind to yourself. I guarantee that when you are nicer to the person you spend the most time with – yourself – you’ll not only feel better. Your audience (and everyone else, for that matter) will also sense this, and feel safer with you as a result… and welcome you into their hearts even more.
Will you share your comments and feelings about this below? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Happy Self-Love Day!
Valentine’s Day brings up so much baggage. It was created by Hallmark to sell greeting cards. And it leaves single people feeling alone and insufficient, and often causes couples to try to measure up to a mythical standard.
So how about we recontextualize this day… as a time when we learn to have more compassion and acceptance of ourselves? Even… self-love?
It breaks my heart when I hear people say that they can have some more compassion toward themselves, but that loving themselves is almost out of the question.
This is also really important professionally: in my opinion, half of what makes a confident, effective speaker is self-love. And it’s most of what makes a genuinely happy person, too.
A few tips:
Know that there’s no such thing as being perfect.
People will love you more when you give yourself permission to be ALL of you.
When you embrace yourself as an ever-evolving, imperfect human, you give others permission to be themselves, too.
So give yourself a break. Today, my wish is that we each spend time to appreciate ourselves, our foibles, our humanity, and our gifts. May we all be gentle and sweet with ourselves.
Recently my focus has simply been on self-love. Loving myself during my mistakes. Loving myself while I continue on this interesting human journey, with all its aspects. Loving myself, with compassion and care, as much as I do my clients, friends and colleagues.
Why is it so much easier to love others than ourselves? Although, anger and other negative emotions toward others are often a reflection of how we feel toward our own person. Interestingly, we often have the hardest time with those we know the best – spouses, coworkers, great friends… often can be the ones we’re also frustrated with. And, the one we know best of all (and, sometimes, understand the least) is ourselves. We judge ourselves, punish ourselves, and worse, for actions that we might have much more easily forgiven in others. Or, at least, in a small child who obviously would have known no better.
The step toward self-love can begin with witnessing and curiosity. Rather than just judging something you did, view it as if an aspect, or part, of you, was responsible for that. Imagine if the part who did an action you judge, or had a feeling with which you struggle, was a child. Would the most loving treatment be to yell at her or him? Would that help your inner sweet, innocent one feel safe?
Action: Write down a list of how you’d like others to treat you. Then, take an inventory of how you’re actually treating yourself. Begin to notice any gaps. And when you have a strong feeling, notice where you feel it in your body… and imagine as if that is part of you that needs to be heard and wants honoring and expression. Send a message to yourself, like…
“I hear you.”
“I care about you… and about what you’re experiencing.”
“I love you.”
After trying this, please note any experiences below.
Recently, on Valentine’s Day, we looked at the idea of being in a state of love – rather than falling in or out of it. The obvious question is… how? Yes, it’s easier to say than do. Let’s delve into this.
Focus on what you have to offer – not what you want in return. If you’re focused on reciprocation, your love is conditional. Now, this doesn’t mean you should just give and give until you’re depleted. That just means you’re without self-care. It’s a matter of focusing on giving from the heart.
But you can also give from the heart to yourself. Start when you’re alone. Visualize breathing in and out of your heart, per the heart breathing technique discussed previously. But this time, direct it toward yourself. When you exhale, instead of just giving outward, breathe from your heart into your entire being.
More techniques coming in part 2.
We’re all familiar with the demands of the day. And it’s easy to push ourselves too hard – especially those of us who consciously work on ourselves. “Am I fully evolved…yet?” And by the end of the day, it’s exhausting.
I have a little theory, though: being exhausted comes from simply thinking that everything takes so much work.What if we entered every situation under the assumption that everything could come from a state of ease, flow, and grace? That we need to simply show up, be present, stay focused and relaxed, and let everything arise naturally? One might call this a state of grace.
Action: Today, let go of all stress around shoulds and move into showing up, accepting what is, and relaxed, appropriate action. And, if you’re not sure how to do this, begin by visualizing it, and see where it takes you.
It’s essential to take good care of ourselves: get good exercise, have alone time, do things that are nurturing for us. And it’s important to love and appreciate ourselves and our presence in the world.
The former is self-care, and the latter is self-love. There’s a subtle difference, however, when we look at self-cherishing. to overly “cherish” oneself over others, to place yourself higher than other people, means that you are worthy of more attention than others. This act strengthens and reifies the ego self, the part that most spiritual and religious teachings discuss as, in the end, less important.
Action: Today, notice your behavior toward yourself. Continue to love and appreciate yourself and take good care of your needs. However, if you find that you’re doing so to the extent that you’re forgetting to equally love other people, make an adjustment, and do some actions that love others, too.
Let’s look a little more at that inner critic. It might be viewed as the internalized Voice of Society. Or perhaps the Stater of Idealized Norms (how we Think everyone is supposed to be like). Or the If-I-Was-A-Good/Healthy/Functioning-Person-I’d-Be-That-Way Declarer. Or the Comparer (“That person is obviously doing much better than you are. Why don’t you do that?”). Or the Arbiter of What is Good and Proper (“and you obviously are not it”).
Phew.
We hold everything a little too tightly, don’t we? Here’s a way to give yourself more space and permission to be, well, human.
Action: Next time you find that you’re judging yourself…
- Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and physically relax your body, especially your shoulders, chest and solar plexus (which is where we often store these feelings).
- Imagine that your body expands a few feet out, giving more room for these feelings.
- Let it keep expanding as much as necessary – to the size of the room… the building… the city… and so on, until you really have enough space and permission for all that you are. (Note: if it ever feels too big or spacey, just adjust it to be somewhat smaller again.)
Yes. You can give yourself that much Space and Permission to Be – All That You Are.
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