Radical Self-Care

“Something inside you is always telling a story. I believe every single thing you see and hear is talking to you. The bottom line with all of this. . .is Love. We want to show ourselves and have that be accepted. I love being alive, and the art is the evidence of that.”
~ Jim Carrey, actor & artist, in a wonderfully magical video

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I start each blog by asking What’s it about today? Self-care came thru loud & clear. In the shower, my thinking mind jumped to radical self-care.

I logged onto emails. Webinar-podcast whiz Amy Porterfield’s message was self-care. On Facebook Anne Lamotte spoke to radical self-love, which includes self-care.

Sitting at the computer, what I felt is how little space I feel inside. I write and teach about the importance of space inside us for the creative process. How expansion is what the creative process is about. That engaging with creativity is a dance. What we want is to focus on possibilities that come with a Yes inside, and expand the dance floor.

Then I glanced at my tea mug beside my computer. Felt the big No in my chest from breaking a promise to myself months ago I’d enjoy my fine tea. Taste it vs. have it be a beginning ritual for work. I don’t want the computer today, I thought. I rescheduled this blog to Saturday morning. Radical. I’m committed to you here.

At a friend’s later, I said I have to go after we’d talked 2-12 hours, the time feeling like minutes. Just two more things, she said. After that I said ‘just one more.’ We kept on as I signed a book she bought for an author friend of hers. An entire hour passed before I got in my car, glad I let the connection continue. I decided to do ‘nothing’ the rest of the day.

I lingered in the market. At home, I turned off the computer, leisurely thumbed through a fav weekly. It’d been ages since I did this with leisure, or on the day it came out. I cooked food, ate it at the small high top counter of a table in the kitchen while listening to the rain. Not at my desk where I usually eat. I watched episodes of ‘The Crown’ on Netflix before exhaustion stole my mind. I saw two episodes before I fell asleep. Simple, little things that may not sound radical, and for me, they’re Big. Because it’s the little things that trip us up. The day-to-day that slides into habit.

I’ve shared my desire & efforts to get back to the joy of writing fiction and poetry. I’ve tried to do it like I used to, writing with others to prompts, and confess it hasn’t worked. Now I believe it’s because I didn’t fully surrender to the creative process, allowed space inside me. Because it’s clear the challenge is not the time allocated. + I’ve done this before, with heavy trials. And I heard characters and stories and the full breath of a poem then. I edit my Facebook posts like tiny poems. I can expand the dance floor.

The other day I stepped away from the computer, went outside. I couldn’t believe how glorious the day was. The air, the sky, the birds on a wire. So like Heaven I felt myself breathing deeply. And I was missing it! Still, I pulled myself away, returned to work. What would have happened had I stayed ten minutes more?

Travel has always given me space inside. Put me in a state of awe & wonder. I return a different person. One with expanded boundaries of thought and Being. I haven’t been able to travel in a few years. Today I decide I’ll travel another way until I can board an airplaine.

I’ll follow awe and wonder in nature and thru art. Researchers at UC Berkeley say it’s a very good thing to do. In a study they found awe, wonder and beauty signal the immune system to work harder and may lower inflammation & extend our lives! I’ll buy that. Their suggestions for getting this direct influence on health and life expectancy are where awe and wonder reside for me–walks in nature, losing oneself in music, beholding art. I can travel this way. This is not new to me.

I look up often at my desk, gaze out a window across the room at trees. Behind me, above my desk, is the eastern sky framed in two small windows. I’m going to turn, look out at the sky more often. Perhaps the next rainbow I catch won’t be fading.

• Step away, even for ten minutes, from people and things that constrict your insides. Look at the sky, or peer at the minute details in a leaf or blade of grass.
• Consider what radical self-care is for you. Make a list. Do one thing this week. Schedule one thing next week. Note how you feel inside after you do.
• Collect some stickers: