My greatest desire is that we all know we have choice.
My greatest desire is that we know that we can accept responsibility for our health and life.
My greatest desire is that you know that you can listen to your body and she will tell you what you need.
It is my greatest wish for myself and for all of us.
It is not that long ago that we didn’t need the word self-care. That living a healthy life wasn’t something you sought out. Created, thought about, designed or paid for. It didn’t rely on drugs, pills, one hit wonders, buckets of supplements or false promises sold to us.
Self-care was a way of being. A way of living.
To get up in the morning with the sunrise and be out in nature, growing and foraging our food, tending to the land and the animals and going to bed with the natural light, or with candle light. Being in community, exchanging stories, looking after each other’s families, kids, elders and neighbours. Love and care. And I am sure lots of shenanigans in-between!
As I write this it is Sunday morning, new moon in April, and I am on Day 3 of my bleed. The sea is calm, there is not a whisper of a breeze. I feel immense calm and clarity.
On the precipice of another week in these times, I know I have a choice. I can choose a life of reaction and blame or I can feel this clarity and know I have a choice of how to live.
I choose hope, health and my inner knowing.
As a reminder to myself for future days when I may get a little lost I write this. And I hope for you it also offers something similar.
I know it is not an easy path these days to think you can even think you can be healthy with your hands alone.
There are many reasons why it is easier to hand our thoughts and beliefs over to some else. Or adopt theirs, or the most common thread going around the government, media and social media. I can get lost in it as well.
We have been told how to think, how to school, what success looks like, and more importantly what success does not look like. Some of us got sucked in more than others (my hand is down now, it was up a few years ago). Some of us think we are not sucked in anymore but we get sucked back in at times (my hand is back up). We have been told that others know best for us. That our decisions are no longer our own. That we need to comply.
And that to comply means caring about others.
But what about caring about ourselves? What if we decided that to care for others is to take care of our health? What if we all said - I am going to take responsibility for myself?
We are humans. We are collective humans. Which means we affect each other. We affect each other’s immune systems. Which means that we could positively impact each other.
Which means that we could positively impact each other.
We start first with ourselves though. One step at a time. One day at a time. Preferably in like hearted company.
We already know that when we listen to ourselves, we know what we need. We know that when we simplify our lives and slowdown that all the wisdom and truth is within us. We have never needed other outside influences to tell us what to do. We have not survived on this planet until now with other humans or institutions telling us what we need. Or what is good for us.
How can someone who doesn’t know you, tell you what your body is feeling or what she needs? You cannot tell me that right now that I am not thirsty. I am. Or that I need a walk. I do.
Our body already knows. Our inner and outer nature guides us.
My greatest desire is that you get some time to pause. And decide what is right for your life and body.
I wish that you can be in such inspiring company that it makes it easier to choose this. You already know it, you already know that by breathing in fresh life deliberately each morning that you feel so much better than not. By taking a few moments of stillness in the morning that you feel hope and by feeling it you already share it with others around you.
I know you already know this.
I know I can forget.
I need reminders as well.
I am human.
We all are.
I am with much Hope, Health and Inner Knowing.