What do YOU want for Mother's Day?

My husband asked me what I want for Mother's Day.  This is always a tough question for me.  I’ve spent my life caring for others, my first career as a Registered Nurse and then a young mother raising four children.  As women, mothers and caretakers we are conditioned to put others needs first before our own.  Many of us come from puritan backgrounds and taught to always be selfless and accommodating to others needs.  We were taught to fit in, to play well together in the sandbox and to not compete.   But we also live in a competitive capitalistic society with high expectations, particularly if you are from Washington DC.  If you are like me, then you may have an innate competitive nature, maybe one of your strengths is ambition and competition.  If your learned belief is not to outshine others, to play well in the sandbox, you may work well collaboratively while internalizing that competitive spirit.  How many of us are more critical of ourselves than others?  How many of us hold higher expectations of ourselves than we do others?  Being born a twin, in a family of several generations of twins, competition was frowned upon.  If you want to fit in, you must be average; otherwise you risk being verbose and or vain, both shameful characteristics.  I learned to love competition on the tennis court and yet paradoxically noticed how if I started to win by too much of a margin, I would instinctively back off, let the other person win a few games so that we could both feel good and have fun together.  Also interesting to note is that I lost a couple of partners when I didn’t do this.  One friend said she wouldn’t play with me again until she got better, which so confused me.  Wasn’t that the point, to play with someone better so that you could improve your game? How do you get better if you don’t put yourself out there and play? Sports and competition teach us a lot about others and ourselves. 

Someone called me Super Woman yesterday.  I’ve been told before that I had the biggest case of “Super Woman Complex” ever seen.  You see as women, we often internalize that competitive spirit and strive for an unrealistic goal of perfection.  We have to look good, act good, our homes have to be spotless, we have to always be kind, loving, compassionate and giving, with a smile on our face.   We buy the perfect gifts and serve the perfect meals at family celebrations and then wonder why we have a migraine headache and our exhausted when we should be happy and grateful for all that we have.  Yet we ignore our own needs until the pain in the neck or the back or the head gets so big that we have to stop, usually with a cold pack and in bed. 

When asked, what do you want for Mother’s Day, I used to always say, I want everyone to be healthy and happy.   What I didn’t realize was that as a Mother, I had to set the example.  If I was healthy and happy then my children, family and friends were more likely to be healthy and happy.  In fact, I’ve had to learn that I can and must break the puritanical pattern if I want my children and grandchildren to thrive.  Sacrificing the self can not only cause “dis-ease” in the body (as the body tries to send us messages to stop, slow down and treat ourselves well), but it causes sadness, resentment and negative energy and pain to those around us too.   

The antidote, the secret sauce is that self-love and self-compassion allows for self-healing, not only for us but for others too!

It’s really taken me years to truly understand this.  It’s taken a road to recovery with my children and myself to learn this.  I now understand the profound difference between the words caretaker and caregiver.  I now understand that we either react out of fear or respond out of love.   Often my actions were fueled by fear of not being good enough or not fitting in, instead of motivated by what would make me feel better.   I now understand that self-care and self-compassion really is the most loving thing that you can do not only for yourself but also for your family and your friends.  That when you give to yourself first, when you are your best first, then you have more to give to others and you attract others to you.  You attract those who want what you have, which are ultimately more joy, more peace and more love. 

So I wish today for all Mothers a very Happy Mothers Day, one that is filled with celebration and acknowledgement of your love and your actions and the gifts that you have given to others.  Most importantly, I wish for all Mothers the ability to really answer, “What do YOU want for Mother's Day?"  Will we love ourselves today as we love our children?  Will we speak kindly and softly to ourselves and recognize and hush the harsh critic inside?

If you are challenged with this, will you schedule a Discovery Call with me so that we can discuss how coaching or yoga dance or the free Carpe Diem App might be a guide or support tool for you?   Go to my website, www.carpediemwellness.org and download my app and/ or join me on Monday morning in Vienna Virginia at 10am for a fun joyful Yoga Dance class.

Happy Mothers Day and Carpe Diem, seize the day because we only have this moment and this day to live life to its fullest.

With Love & Gratitude,

Lisa

More thoughts on Healing From Within

It was no accident that I titled my blog, “Healing from Within”. Intuitively I knew that all health, all healing has to come from within.  I say intuitively because this is not what I was taught growing up or in nursing school.  Our western thought is that science is king and if we just have the right diagnosis, the right doctor, the right therapist, we can get the answer we are seeking to “fix” our problems.

But what if our problems, our discomfort, our dis-ease isn’t a bad thing?  What if we took a paradigm shift in thinking and looked at these “issues” as gifts?  As a message to us from ourselves, or from God or from a higher power or whatever you can accept for the moment.  What if we looked upon ourselves lovingly like a parent looks at a child learning to walk when they fall down?  That falling down is just a natural part of the journey of life.  Scraped knees teach us balance, how to stand erect and ride a bicycle.

What if we took the negative judgment away, could we be more apt to find a solution?  Might then the journey feel loving and kind instead of fearful and overwhelming?  Might the journey even be joyful?

What if we focused on the first root chakra in Yoga Dance and the mantra, “I have”. What if we truly believed that we had enough?  We had enough time, enough money, enough food, enough shelter.  What if we changed our internal dialogue of “There’s never enough time” or “if I only had more money, more time, more whatever….” What if we felt and acted like we do have all that we need right here and right now, to be happy and satisfied with ourselves, in this moment.  What if we accepted that we are here where we are supposed to be to learn what it is we need to learn in this journey called life?  Could we then give ourselves permission to breathe deeply and fully? Could we then lessen our anxiety and fear? Could we possibly even be more productive?  Might we even laugh at ourselves? 

Could we then accept that we are all perfectly imperfect?  I believe that this is the reason to practice the art of (self) loving kindness and the practice needs to begin within, here and now. 

This is where a coach, a group, a therapist, or a good trustworthy friend can help.  Come begin to practice self care and loving kindness with me at a Let Your Yoga Dance Class Sunday afternoon in Great Falls, Va at Beloved Yoga Studio  http://belovedyoga.com/pages.php?name=Schedule#Fri

Namaste & Carpe Diem,

Lisa

One more on ESSENCE....

I’ve heard that we teach that which we need to learn.  That is certainly true for me with both the Fall Food Demo classes and Let Your Yoga Dance.  Last night, I couldn’t sleep.  I woke up again to pain in my neck and instead of berating myself for not knowing why I can’t “just fix this” with the right yoga stretch and massage, the thought occurred to me, “What is my body trying to tell me?”  Perhaps, I need to practice more of what I preach….

So I came downstairs to meditate on this question, to surrender to my need to “fix it” to let go of the need to control it and to just feel the pain and it occurred to me to practice the ESSENCE meditation that I had written about earlier this summer in my newsletter and then again in a blog (that I had written but just now posted).  I write a lot, but for one reason or another have not posted all of my blogs.  Why? Perhaps it is due to my own censorship, fear of inadequacy, lack of social media skills or the belief that I don't have enough time.  Deepak Chopra says, “If we think we don’t have enough time we won’t”…

So if my body is trying to tell me something, do I believe that my body is punitive or loving?  I choose to believe that my body loves me; and that our God (or higher power) also loves me, like a parent.  What are these loving thoughts then?  Is my pain telling me that I am weak or not good enough? That I'm innately bad? Is it telling me that it is my fault that I am ill?  Is it judgmental?  Is it shameful?

OR is my body merely just trying to get my attention?  Does it have to scream louder because I refuse to slow down… to stop, look and listen?  Or is it because I refuse to take time to meditate; to believe in myself, and the wisdom that lies innately within.  Is this really the essence of healing?

Which thought is more conducive to health?  Which thought would you choose today?  One that you are broken and need to be fixed; or one that is about taking back your health and of self-empowerment?  This is the paradigm shift in thinking that has to happen to heal healthcare.  This is the essence of what we do together in a coaching session.  This type of breakthrough thinking is what leads to self-love and self care.  We learn to choose to silence the ANTs (automatic negative thoughts) and to create a new more loving script to live by.

I then Googled “yoga poses for insomnia” and reviewed exactly what it is I need to teach in this afternoon’s yoga class.  The workshop series I am doing at Beloved Yoga Studio offers food and a discussion after each Let Your Yoga Dance Class, and today our topic is staying “Healthy through the Holidays”.

I then slept for 5 ½ hours straight; which is exactly what my body needed!   Namaste & Carpe Diem!