Things that make me feel grounded and bring me back home to myself 💗🌿✨
#selfcare
Tag: Quiet
A mandatory selfie to capture the memory of being out in 9 degrees (felt like 6?), under the sun, on my own, at 7:30am, in my gym pants, with a strange sense of comfort, no sensory overload, and of finally… FINALLY being in my own body, focused on every step because nothing else around me requires too much of my attention.
I walked around 1.2km, got us coffee, sat on a bench in peace, listening to the birds and felt a sense of calm in my heart. It was the feeling you get when you feel at home, a sense of safety and comfort, even though a place is new. And then my eyes filled up at the thought of how much I missed this.
A sense of quiet and stillness makes me feel at home… and lately it’s been far from that.
Thankful to be here today despite all the not so nice things in life.
Line
I wonder why things have to be so extreme out here.
Either people help you or they don’t give a shit. Either you’re expected to need help all the time or not need any. If you ask for help too much, you’re considered helpless. If you don’t need help (they want to help) and you say, “No, thank you!”– that’s rude.
If you expect people to look out for you, you get no say as to what’s okay and what’s not. You don’t get to draw a line and drawing that line is so necessary! People hover over you day in day out as if you’re in need supervision when all you need is perhaps for them to check on you once in a while. If you tell them you need space, they take it personally as if it’s all about them when it’s more about your personal space and what helps you heal.
I’ve noticed that out here, you are forever expected to entertain and be entertained when all we need sometimes is some quiet time and letting each other be. I fail to understand how a group of people can start chattering away at the crack of dawn and continue chattering away throughout the day, only taking breaks to use the loo and shower, and perhaps to sleep.
I see how there could be some positives to spending time together and doing things together — I mean, I love it too! Cooking and dining together, sitting around and catching up, playing games as a group… all that is great for bonding! What is beyond my understanding is how people don’t need pockets of their quiet, personal time to tend to themselves.
(I mean, sure, we all function differently and by no means am I saying it has to be just one way or the other, but let’s just say, it’s absolutely hard for me to relate to. Just like my illness and my lifestyle is hard for others to relate to.)
It’s such a misconception that tending to yourself means you’re selfish.
Self-care is neccessary.
When you learn to tend to yourself, you are able to be at your best self for others. When you learn to give to yourself first, you learn to give wholeheartedly to others. It’s through learning to set healthy boundaries for yourself that you learn to respect those of others. It’s through sharing quiet moments with yourself that you can truly share time with others. From my understanding, for us to forge deeper relationships with those around us, we must begin with forging a deep relationship with our ‘self’ first. And maybe this concept is too foreign for some parts of the world but personally, it has made the greatest impact in my life and how I’ve come to terms with my illness. The journey of self acceptance has a lot to do with self-care. And self-care has a lot to do with drawing a line.
If there is anything that I truly wish for, it is for our culture to introduce concepts like self-care and healthy boundaries from a young age. Imagine how far we’d come.
-M
Not quite home
An old post which was left unpublished for a while
————
This place still reminds me of pain and suffering. A pain that held me back for years and has taken me years to let go.
This place isn’t quite home. It never felt like home and I’m not afraid to say so anymore.
This place was more of a refuge from another place claiming to be home but all it did was caused more suffering.
I searched everywhere for a place I’d want to come back to and only found places I wanted to run away from. Farther and father, every year.
Soon I realised I had to create a home for myself and that this process had to begin from within. That safe space I so terribly craved and needed had to be created with love, first towards myself.
I had to learn to be my own pillar of support and for that I had to unlearn the idea of constantly supporting and accommodating for everyone else.
To create a home for myself, I Â had to first be willing to accept my story; one that is way more than what I speak about.
Today, I am thankful to have a safe space for myself. A sanctuary of my own where I get to take care of myself mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
A space that allows me to hear my own voice and follow my heart. A space where my creativity runs wild. A space where I get to build new relationships and tend to those that matter. A space that protects me because I have learned to protect it with healthy boundaries.
I am thankful to have found silence. That stillness, which some would run away from because it’s just too much to handle. I am so thankful to have realised that once you do truly come home, there is never any need to seek it else where.
And if ever I need to rebuild a home for myself all over again, I know exactly where to start.
-not quite home
So I’m sitting in my living room listening to mantras, my palo santo burning near my bookshelf, and i suddenly realize how quiet my entire apartment is. Everything is quiet. I’m in a noisy country but at this very point in time it’s all so quiet around me. I love this. I crave for this so much. This quietness is something I want and need to live this life to my very best.
There’s been far too much movement in my life lately (or should I say, all my life) that these moments of stillness is what brings me a sense of stability and peace. It allows me to connect with myself, which has been a little hard lately considering how terribly off track I am in terms of my daily routine and rituals that help me stay sane and manage my health. I can’t possibly stress enough how much a routine and some personal rituals have helped me to get here.
As the unpacking ends and the actual settling in begins, it looks like I can finally let go a little, slow down and focus a lot more on my health.
For the last eight months or so, my health took a backseat as I simply had to get through this move. I’ve been feeling sort of out of my element, you know, kind of scattered and all I know is that it’s not where I like to be. Despite dealing with a lot more health issues throughout 2017, I’ve had to push myself and make things happen. My thought was, the quicker I got things done, the quicker I got to rest. And now that my sanctuary has come alive to quite some extent, it’s time to prioritise health and self-care and work towards my next goal. More on that later.
Okay, I’m going to keep my phone away now and get back to sitting still. To listening to my heart beat. To watching those crazy thoughts come and go. To noticing pain.
To being thankful for being here.
✨
#sanctuary #quiet #evenings #peace #calm #love #home #mantra #meditation #chronicillness #pain #suffering #eds #ehlersdanlos #ehlersdanlossyndrome #illness #routine #rituals #onestepatatime #gratitude #thankyou #health #mind #body
Quiet mornings
D I G I T A L D E T O X – With my classes and workshops starting again this year, I haven’t had a chance to go on my usual monthly digital detox for a while now. However, it looks like the time has come! I’m in a desperate need to disconnect from the world for a while and do things that help me build up on my energy levels. My health hasn’t been all that great lately and all of a sudden I have a tonne of other things to juggle and deal with. I’m predicting next few months will be rather fast-paced for me, which means I need to make sure I give myself more time and care so that my body doesn’t experience some kind of a shock. So there’s my brain trying to think of the quickest and most effective way to get things done, bringing out the old workaholic and control-freak in me and here’s my body doing its thing, being wise and reminding me to go slow. When I work at the speed of my mind, my body suffers for sure and life gets really R E A L L Y hard. When I allow my body lead and let my mind do the supporting role, things seem to work a little more in harmony which in turn keeps my spirit going. Up until today, each time life got too fast-paced (which gives me a bit of a high), learning to mindfully slow down and squeezing out some time for myself is what helped me tremendously. Mindlessly going with the flow has never worked in my case.
I’ll be right back!
Sending everyone lots of love and spoons,
Manasi
Quiet Saturday
Me with my blank papers and markers on a quiet and cloudy Saturday morning ✨
Going off social media for a week to re-set, re-align and re-start.
Take a moment to disconnect and have a pleasant week ahead!
My Tape Story 