“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
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