I Can See Clearly Now

 

 

When in Mexico, I got new glasses.  I knew my eyes had changed a great deal in two years.  I had no idea how much.  When I came out of the office, there was a long mirror at eye level.  I looked, and, truly, I never even recognized myself.  The wrinkles, the specialist had just called “Ozempic Face” was glaringly obvious.  I looked soooo old.  It was as if the new owl-eyed glasses magnified everything, including the wrinkles on my face.  I could definitely see…but it did not all look better.  Be if grief, or be it a 60-pound weight loss, it had wracked havoc on the skin of my body head to toe.  I was so disheartened.  I realized how ‘un-Present’ I had been.  I, also, realized, how vain I am.  It mattered, right to my bones, mattered.

Self-image is an emotional judgement we make on our own self-worth that comes from outside influencers and influences.  It becomes our mantra of self and we might miss some precious things about ourselves when we let it be veiled by self-image.   It can permeate all our relationships with people, places and things.  It influences how we act, how we think, and, because we feel badly about ourselves, we may try to compensate for how much we feel we are ‘not enough’.  There are seven ways that we view ourselves.

We might minimize our good qualities and not accept the positive things others say to us.  We might devalue our positive attributes because we are sop hooked into the negative that we devalue and/or ignore our positive qualities.

We might live under the colored glasses of comparison’s view of self.  Constantly analyzing what is wrong with self, according to someone else.  We can get lost in other’s reality of us.   We can become dissatisfied with ourself, with our life, with our relationships, etc.   We begin to feel like a fringe person, that we do not matter, that we can never be ‘Good’ enough.  This view can cause us anxiety, depression, and a sense of doing nothing but trying to please others and constantly failing at even that. We begin to act ‘as if’ we do not matter. This sad feeling can become comfortable to us, but our soul will never give us up.  It will niggle at us until we change our view.

Our soul, psyche, ego, wants to be comfortable in our own skin.  It runs chatter in the background, both negative and positive.  If we choose to listen to the negative, the negative gladly takes over and criticizes everything we try to do.  If we shift our view to the positive, the positive can win over.  We know our strengths, we know what we do that makes us feel at peace, comfortable in our own skin.  We are supposed to be working on self all the time, like a running craving, our soul urges us, physically, even, to make changes … to live fully, to grow.  Change takes time.. look how long we speak negatively to self.  We need to spend the same amount of time validating ourselves.  Some days it will work.  Some, it won’t, but we have to keep trying because Creator does not make garbage.  It is an insult to Creator not to live to our full potential.  We are here to take care of Mother Earth and to take care of others, and we cannot do it if our mindset is off. 

On International Women’s Day, right smack dab in the middle of my frustration at wrinkles, and with Ego smashing my self-confidence, I ended up going to The Round House (Splatsin Community Center, and was honored to be able to join in on their celebrations.  After some facts, a film presentation, a great activity, we were called to the circle for the ending.  Everyone was given a wooden, shaped, disk.  We were to write our first name in the middle of the disk, then we were to pass it to our left.  Each person was to write a word or two about how they see you.  So many were strangers I had never seen before and they certainly did not know me, for the most part.  When we got our disks back, we were to read them and give a sentence or two in the talking circle.  I was blown away and ashamed that I did not see what they see.  I had tears running down my cheeks.  I have put that wooden flower and have it pegged where I can see it every morning.  I need to change my reactions to life so that I can be what they see… I see what they wrote as potential.   I can be what they see of me.  You can be your most positive as well.  Be that!

©Carol Desjarlais 4.30.24   

 

Self Care and Self-Regulation

 

 

“When you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than you do.”

-- John O’Donohue

The very term, “Self-Care”, immediately sounds selfish and self-centered, to many.  But it is key to a healthy mind, body, and spirit.  It is critical to take time to nurture ourselves in this chaotic world full of distrust, negative diatribe, financial pressures, world instability.  It is crucial to take care of ourselves, to gain more inner strength, to gain a deep sense of being loved and cared for  so we can love and take care of others.

Self-regulation is the ability to control our emotions so that we act on our emotions with a true sense of what we value, who we value, and reacting to our emotions with a sense of purpose.  It means that we manage our own negative reactions so that we think before we act.  As well, self-regulation allows us to take a “hit” from life, to deal with disappointments, to deal with rejections, to rise above negative bombardments on our very soul, and rise above it all to be compassionate with self and others so that we have inner and outer peace.

One of our basic human needs is to belong.  Many struggle with this.  I do.  From the moment of being given away, I became a fringe person.  It left a devastating lifelong wound that I have struggled with.  Even after being ‘found’ by my maternal and paternal family, within the last two decades, made a huge difference.  I belong:  blood and bone belonging.  But, then, I was still a fringe person… new to the party, extra, different, not in the know, and now included into the political scene of a large broken and wounded family.    Being found by my paternal family was still difficult to belong. Because father had passed years ago, as had siblings except for my brother who was a full brother.  It is only with him that I truly belong.  Our immediate bonding was incredible.  He is my older brother and has taken on that role in my life.  We are close.  I belong to him and he belongs to me in a deep genetic, soulful way.  The relief is great and I am grateful, right to my very soul. 

Belonging means that we must self-regulate so we do not risk exclusion. Belonging means to figure out the group values and complex relationships so as not to do something that will cause them to exclude you.  It takes self-regulation and I learned that part of it all at the age of 60. Belonging also means that we have to learn to be less impulsive, learn to resist temptations that might cause exclusion, do things you do not want to do, stop your intrusive and negative thoughts, and control your emotional reactions.  No easy feat, to be sure.  But these are things we need to get a handle on so that we are not excluded from our group/groups.  I find it so difficult to pause between feelings and reactions.  When I succeed, it is realty empowering, but I do not have it quite yet.  I guess it is going to be a lifelong thing. 

Things we need to be aware of self-regulating for our own self-care are to know how to calm ourselves when emotional, see the good in others, and be sure you stay aware of what and who you value.  We need to learn to cheer ourselves up and realize no one can make us feel anything we do not want to feel.  Part of Self-regulation and Self-care is learning how to communicate openly, without any agenda. As well, we need to learn how to keep on keeping on and being persistent during hard times.  I have, also, found that we have to be adaptable, learn how and when to surrender, and learn how to take a stand for what we believe and intend.  Another thing is that is important, is learn how to confront and learn how to take control of situations if necessary.  Another is to do your best and be proud of doing your best even when you fail.  Every challenge is an opportunity to learn, to progress, and to mature.  All of these things are huge for me.  I am not good at self-regulation but am finding that I am better at it as I age.

We always have three ways a situation can go.  We can learn to check in to our body reactions and realize when we are getting stressed and in danger of losing our self-control.  We can learn to check in on our emotions and understand the WHY of them. We need to realize that we and eve situation is more than our feelings, our emotions, and to learn to weigh in decisions, alternatives and how what we do in the next few minutes can change the trajectory of our life, our peace, our soulful intentions.  We are way more than our feelings.  Life is about way more than our emotions.  We release energy out into the ether.  I am trying.  Amidst great emotional upheavals since losing my daughter, last June, and all the chaos of a Pluto reign of major changes and transitions, I am seeking my peace.  To do this, to take care of self, I have to learn to self-regulate bigtime.  Sometimes life, as I said, sucks, and we should not suck with it.

©Carol Desjarlais 4/4/24

 

Say What? Mars’ Rule?

 

 

April, now, is ruled by Mars. 

Be aware that everything about your desires, your actions, energy, passions will come to full focus.  Within this is the focus on aggression, assertion, sex and war will hold court. Be conscious that these things will rise around you, behind you, in front of you, below and above you. 

Mars is all about our base animal instincts and survival will be forefront.  You will be defensive…ultra defensive, if you do not use your skills to cope with your anger and need to be right.  You will be aware of gender inequalities and understand how sexual tensions come to play, no matter what age.  Mars is ruling all things.  How do we control ourselves when passions are high?

Self-discipline is how we get things done; how we make progress to higher human beings.  Those with the best self-discipline do the best on our journey down here on earth.  Passion is an abundance of emotional energy.  What keeps us composed, hopeful, dedicated, is self-discipline so we do not let our passions run wild.

To develop better self-control, we need to be accountable.  Gratitude for all we have, every small thing about us and our lives, helps us develop strong values.  What we value, we work hard to achieve.  To develop stronger self-control, we need to accept our human frailties and our capabilities.  When we were… say, ten years old, we wanted to be movie strs, maybe we wanted to be rock stars, and not have the wherewithal to be such.  As we mature, (around 28 years of age) we gain a clear sense of our goals and know what will work and know what will not.  We know what we would do in situations, for we have mis-stepped and know how far off target we can go.  To develop self-discipline, we need a goal to reach for and a reward for steps we make along the way.  We need a Plan A, B, C… and have small steps that will eventually get us our goal or somewhere near it.  Self-discipline keeps us from trying to do too much, or too little that will eventually get us to our goal or somewhere near it.

If you would have told me, at thirty years of age, that I would leave a 19-year marriage, and take the babies and go to University, I would have scoffed.   At 37 years of age, I did just that.  And I was very goal-oriented.  I had to get the classes I needed and I kept in mind what it was that I could need to keep house and hearth together.  Organizing four little ones and hitting the University tunnel by 7 am meant I had to be super organized.  Learning patience with myself and those around me was huge as well.  I began making lists in my head of the things I needed to accomplish that day.  I would become anxious-ridden if one thing got in the way of that list.  I still struggle, today, with The List.  I still struggle with having someone or something intrude before I get the List done.  Even this takes Self Control/self-discipline.   I always made rules for myself, even when I was really young.  Apparently, it is one of the symptoms of ADHD/OCD.  I am most hard on myself as a disciplinarian (perfectionism) and flagellate myself verbally when my Plan A has to be scrubbed.  I have to learn Self-Discipline as a positive, still, methinks.  As Mars moves in to rule, I work on letting myself rest more, do less, be kinder to myself, so self-discipline works in other ways other than rule-maker.

Remember to be kind to yourself.  Let Self-discipline be something you work on, as I do, every day.  I work to beat off procrastination as well.  We never get to old to learn to self-discipline about other things.  Mars sucks.

©Carol Desjarlais 4.21.24