Hi,
Dear ones.
Rachel here.
So this month's offering is going to be short and sweet,
And it stems from my own inner investigation about self-love and self-care.
You know,
This is a strange time when everything we used to count on has been taken from us.
We're living through a global pandemic,
And it's scary.
But it's also an invitation.
It's an invitation to stop,
To get quiet,
And to look at our patterning,
Habits,
And conditions,
You know,
And to get really honest with ourselves about what was serving us and what truly wasn't.
So today I'm going to ask you a question.
It's one question,
And I suggest that you get in a spot where you can receive it.
Right,
So feel free to pause this and get a paper,
Piece of paper,
Pen.
Perhaps just take a couple of cleansing breaths in through the nose,
Out through the mouth,
So you feel,
Again,
Just present.
And once I ask the question,
A few suggestions.
If you have some time,
Or if you can make some time.
Free flow.
Right.
Right?
Stream of consciousness.
Write the answer.
Write whatever comes to you.
See if you can not put your pen down for five minutes.
It's a really empowering writing technique where you just make a promise to yourself that you will not lift the pen up off the paper at all.
Right?
Even if you become blank in your mind,
You say,
I'm becoming blank in my mind,
I'm blank in my mind.
And then your subconscious will take over.
And you'll actually write maybe things that you didn't even know.
Okay,
So that's an idea.
Another idea,
Once I ask the question,
Is for you to ask it before you go into meditation this week.
All right?
Deepak Chopra says something really profound about inner investigation and questions.
He says,
You know,
You sit down to meditate,
You ask the question out loud,
And then you release it,
And then you go into your mindful practice.
Right?
And what's interesting is that by just planting the seed,
And then releasing when you need to get the answer,
The answer comes in a really often interesting and unexpected way.
And then the last idea is if you have a mentor or a therapist you're working with,
You know,
Bring this question in.
This is an opportunity to dig in your soil.
Right?
Dig in the soil,
Mix it around.
You decide what you want to weed out,
And you decide what you want to put in to grow.
And so the question,
The long-awaited question is,
Where in my life have I not been honoring my true self and my true needs?
Where in my life have I not been honoring my true self and my true needs?
Jumana Sophia is a woman that I greatly adore.
She calls herself a soul shepherdess.
Very recently a friend of mine introduced me to her work on YouTube,
And I cannot recommend her enough.
She celebrates the divine feminine,
And you know,
She's been helping me a lot in my own journey.
And she defines a sacred need as such when if it's not met,
You feel great pain.
You know,
As a woman,
And I'm sure certain men can also relate to this,
But as a woman sometimes it's hard to even know what our needs are,
Let alone,
Or feel rather,
That we deserve them to be met.
So this is important,
Powerful work.
Right?
Soul work.
And then she also says something that I think is quite astute and wise.
She says,
Because this is a vulnerable time,
Right,
Dealing with a global pandemic,
Black Lives Matter,
Me Too movement,
You know,
Great political upheaval,
Environmental destruction.
I mean,
Unfortunately,
We could have been I mean,
Unfortunately,
We could go on and on.
She says,
Because at such a time,
She has this beautiful,
Beautiful statement,
Which is,
If it doesn't bring you comfort,
Or clarity,
It's not for you.
If it doesn't bring you comfort or clarity,
It's not for you.
And I don't know about you,
But when I heard that I just finally exhaled.
It was like someone gave me permission to own my feelings and respect them and care for myself and stop trying to push myself into boxes that I didn't fit in anymore.
It was pretty profound.
Right?
So can we be honest with ourselves?
And yet,
Can we also be gentle?
Right?
We're,
We're not given an instruction manual,
Right?
We have so many different things that were within us.
And so,
You know,
Brene Brown defines courage as ultimately the ability to let oneself be seen,
Which I think is so beautiful.
Right?
So if you can let yourself be seen to your own self,
There's going to be a lot of shadow and a lot of maybe revelation.
And so part of the process is to be gentle.
Right?
And can we cut ourselves some slack for the choices that we've made?
Because at some level at that time when we made the choice,
The choice was what we thought we deserved and or we believed would keep us safe.
Right?
So can you even ponder some of these beautiful ideas in your own speed,
Your own readiness?
Just ask yourself,
Right,
What is their excess in my life of that is clouding what I really want?
And where can you invite yourself to rid it?
Right?
Can we rid ourselves of excess?
Maybe that's excess social media.
Maybe it's news.
Maybe it's clutter in our homes.
Maybe it's people who don't align with our highest truth anymore.
I will leave you finally with this last quote by the beautiful black queer body positive activist,
Sonya Renee Taylor.
It's in regards to how many people during this COVID pandemic will say things like,
I just want to go back to normal.
And to which she has responded with this.
We will not go back to normal.
Normal never was.
Our pre-corona existence was never normal,
Other than we normalized greed,
Inequity,
Exhaustion,
Depletion,
Extraction,
Disconnection,
Confusion,
Rage,
Hoarding,
Hate,
And lack.
We should not long to return my true self to return my friends.
We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment,
One that fits all of humanity and nature.
Right?
So what new garment do you want to stitch for yourself?
You get to decide.
The question again is,
Where in my life have I not been honoring my true self and my true needs?
I wish you courage to ask yourself that question.
And I also wish you the courage to perhaps do less so that you might see more of what you truly want.
Blessings.
