Well, happy fall ya’ll! Ok, it’s not officially fall yet but the weather is saying otherwise.
This summer has been great at my end. Some health stuff changed up my plans for a good part of it, but it gave me more time to rest, reflect and spend down time with my family. Toss in a fantastic visit to family in England with one of my favourite people (one of my big sisters), and I am left feeling immensely grateful for the season.
But since the seal of fall has been broken, at least in my head, it’s time to think about what a new season has to offer us.
I read something the other day about fall being the best time for self improvement next to the new year. Personally I think we need to improve ourselves in some wee way every single day, just to keep us healthy and sane in this crazy busy world, but if you need to have a time for it by all means use it to take stock.
What’s your summer been like, or your whole year thus far? Are you good with what you’re doing, who you are doing it with? Are you good with how you relate to people in your life? Are you good with not relating to people that you don’t feel give you what you need in a human connection (even if they are family!)
And on a scale of 1-10, how is your soul?
Hope you are saying your soul’s rating is as close to a 10 as you can make it. But I can hear you in my mind saying “not bad, but I wish it had been better…”.
That’s your wakeup call that your soul isn’t happy. So guess what? It’s time to take care of it, meet its needs each and every fucking day. That’s what will bring you to a 10, and to where you will get to feel peace, bliss, calm (whatever you call it) in your day to day life.
Yep, I’m talking yet again on this blog about self-care. But for the love of the goddesses, don’t get on the wagon that is being pulled around about self-care and think that it’s one more thing you have to do to keep up with the women around you. Just what we need, another thing to compare ourselves to or to become perfect about.
Nope, not today.
Instead of self-care, let’s call it maintaining our whole self, and know that it has shit to do with what anyone else is doing or not doing. It’s about how you want to feel and how you stay healthy on all fronts.
We maintain our whole selves for us, and yes for those people that we love with our whole hearts and want to show up for, but first and foremost us. You don’t do it to spoil yourself, you do it to strengthen yourself and to show up as the woman you want to be.
I don’t know what your life looks like when your soul is not happy, when your whole self is not being heard and fed. But for sure, you are not happy. Whole happy.
Maybe you feel the need to blame others for all and anything, you yell louder, you holler at other drivers and use your middle finger liberally. You say things that you may not say normally. And then there is the sadness or the lack of confidence that generates different behaviour again. It’s like you are boiling over with emotion and negativity, even when you think you have started your day on a great note.
Truth is that ignoring your whole self only makes life more difficult for you. And do any of us need more difficult, especially when the resolution to it lies inside each one of us?
It doesn’t need to be a big hairy deal. Without judgement, notice when your behaviour is not what you might want it to be. Ask yourself what would bring your soul down a notch so you can choose the behaviours that serve you.
Then, in line with the woman who is out to better herself, do that.
Remember, your soul and your behaviour are besties.
Satisfy the soul and the calm follows.
