Yesterday was National Mental Health Awareness Day. I meant to post this last night but after teaching 2 yoga classes and having a cup of kava tea I was out by 9pm 🌙
If you haven't tried Kava by Yogi Tea I highly recommend it to help unwind. Also check out the yogi on the back :) Yogi Bhajan is my dude.
There are a few books and decks I use daily. Animal Spirit Deck, The Language of Letting Go, The Wealthy Spirit, Healing Crystals, etc. It's not usual that they all align, but yesterday all of my readings were pointing me towards forgiveness.
This hit pretty hard...because I know the person I really need to forgive is myself.
Have you ever had crazy thoughts run through your head? Thoughts that you judged yourself for? Thoughts that you have felt the burn of shame because of?
I do.
One of the ways I am learning to work THROUGH this (not around it or by dealing with it later) is to NOT identify with the thoughts that run through my head. Let the thoughts come and let the thoughts go. I'm learning to not judge myself for the questions and doubts that I "shouldn't be" having and just focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
Yoga really helps me to do this. I can physically feel and see myself moving forward. And when that doesn't do it, I luckily have found an amazing therapist who pulls me out of those dark holes when I start going too deep. I've never talked publicly about working with a professional to help with my mental health, but it has truly been such a gift. I wish that there wasn't such a stigma about people seeing a therapist. I hope that by sharing a little about my experience that I can encourage others to do it also. In my experience, having an objective person who is TRAINED to listen instead of just firing off advice is a lot more helpful that complaining to friends and family about things that I don't totally understand.
My focus as of lately is to not assign meaning to anything. Who says something is "good" or if something is "bad"? Who gets to tell me how I "should" be feeling? There is so much pressure weighing down on every one of us from the media - we're encouraged to slow down and love ourselves, but when we do that and start to relax then we aren't doing enough.
Believing that there is a way I should be feeling is what got me here in the first place. I still catch myself doing this but it's getting a lot better. While there is definitely no "normal" for me anymore, being transparent on things that I've never shared before is scary. Even talking to the people I'm closest with is hard. If you've been following me for awhile, then you may have noticed that I my solution is always to take action! And that does not work in this situation.. so I am learning to forgive myself for pushing everything so far to the point of it imploding.
We all have masks and facades we put up to make ourselves look better...or look "how we're supposed to look." I'm absolutely guilty of that. It is so much easier to put on a happy face, smile and pretend that I have this all figured out than talking about what is really going on.
The sad, and very scary part about this all is that we get so concerned with what we think of the outside that we put what is happening inside somewhere that we can deal with it later. And what happens is that these things we "shouldn't be feeling" turn into physical ailments. The physically rip us apart inside and make us sick.
As open as I am through these platforms, there are still lots of things in my life that I keep inside. I don't know what everyone is working through, but I know what is helping me right now: Breath + Meditation. Taking 10-15 minutes (more if you have it) in the mornings to tune in and clear our minds is one of the best gifts we can give ourselves. Get quite. Listen to what comes up. People think that meditation is a place where we get quite and blissed out... but meditation is a place where all your shit comes up! The goal is to TRAIN our minds to stay with our breath instead of running away with the thoughts.
Try this: Inhale - Sat, Exhale - Nam. Sat = Truth. Nam = Identity. Try to breath with a 4 count, 4 seconds in and 4 seconds out. What we are saying is that truth is our identity. And by incorporating it with our breath we are sending that message into every cell of our bodies.
If you try this please let me know! I love hearing about how a meditation resonates with others. :)
Now to wrap this up.
To anyone - dare I say everyone - who has felt the weight of struggling with our mental health, I am sending love out to you. And taking a dose of my own super duper organic, full of love and pure light medicine - I do not associate with the thoughts in my head.
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Below I linked the youtube video to my readings: