Week 13 - Self Care Awareness Month Challenge - Start a Compliments File

I'm a little behind on posting my experiences of the 30-Day Self-Care Awareness Month Challenge.
I read through them everyday, but as I believe in Divine Timing, I am trusting that the perfect time for this challenge for me was today. We were invited to begin a Compliment File for ourselves.

My daughter and grand baby had just left from a week long visit and the void left space for unhealed feelings to emerge, as always happens for me when I transition from one project to the next. This time was even more intense for me as I had just watched the video of my last television appearance promoting Self-Care Awareness Month on a morning talk show.

I found myself quickly going down a rabbit hole that I wasn't sure I could find my way back. Start a compliments file... you've got to flipping be kidding me! No Way! I couldn't find one thing nice to say about me!

I've been struggling with getting older. Getting older in itself doesn't really bother me, but how my looks change in relation to how I feel makes me very sad. I still feel 19... until I look in the mirror, and I don't even recognize who I am. So watching me... or a version of me... on television was just more than I could take.

I won't bore you with the details... but I needed to go to bed to get out of my pain. I felt bad that for all my body and  has given/provided for me, that I had nothing nice to say. So, I went to bed and through the tears tried to say one thing nice to this old gal. A compliments file? Let me see if I can just find one.

Self-Love - Day 8 - Self-Care Awareness Month 30-Day Challenge

Here we are at Day 8 on the 30 Day Self-Care Awareness Challenge... with the palm of your hand on a mirror, look yourself in the eyes and say, I LOVE YOU, 10 times! I wanted to write about this because it's hard as well as powerful.

Whew! I've been doing this work for many years and have done this very exercise many times and yet it never looses its potency for accepting myself just as I am.... over and over... again!

When I first began my journey of self-discovery, I was living in a beautiful home in southern Arizona that was completely fenced and had a wrap-around veranda. In trying to learn to appreciate and love all of me, I spent the summer in the nude. Now, 10 years later not only do I still struggle with my body image, I'm still very aware of the areas that I feel lack or not enough.

I took this exercise a bit deeper. I broke up my life into decades and said I LOVE YOU, to me in each stage of my life. I began with pre-birth. I LOVE YOU... I knew you before you were born.

I went to me in the womb. I LOVE YOU, knowing I was an unwanted child.

Next decade, age 1-10, I LOVE YOU, visualizing me as a child, feeling all the parts that I was told were unloveable.

Ages 10-20, I LOVE YOU, in those very awkward years of feeling like no one could love me.

Ages 20-30, I LOVE YOU, finding love and meaning in relationship and family.

Ages 30-40, I LOVE YOU, as the children grew and began finding their own path in life... and realizing that I wasn't a part of it. (I had to get my own life!)

Ages 40-50, I LOVE YOU, as the invitation (discontentment) to the path of self-discovery began showing itself.

Age 50-60, I LOVE YOU, accepting my path for living my life as untraditional and magical, when I rest into it and say yes to the doors that open. Still struggling with my side kick - 'not good enough.'

Let's see, that leave 2 more, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU... you're perfect just the way you are. You're made in the likeness and image of the creator, how can that not be perfect.

Pati, looking into my eyes with one hand on the mirror, I say one last time with true heartfelt meaning, I LOVE YOU.

DON'T POSTPONE THE JOY!

Day 6 of the Self-Care Awareness 30-Day Challenge invites us to take the time to discover what brings us joy in our life? What lights us up? What puts a smile on our face.

When working with clients, I also add, "It can't be SOMEONE or SOMETHING." Well, that takes loads of things out of the equation. Now, I'm not saying that people or things can't bring you joy, but when you're trying to discover your passion for living, people and things are just on the surface.

Why can't it be someone or something? A few reasons. First, as I mentioned, they are not deep down desires of who you were created to be. What brings you real joy and puts a smile on your face is something deep within your being. It's a soul calling. It's a gift that you've been given to share with the world.

Secondly, SOMETHING... will always go away. It may bring you joy for a bit, but it's not the passion deep within. SOMEONE... is on their own life's journey path... and at some point will venture off to follow their hearts desire even if you're not ready.

Nope... to discover what truly brings you joy in your life, you may have to ask someone from childhood. "What did I like to do? Play?" Many times, in becoming an adult we loose sight of what we used to love.

So while the challenge today is to discover and show what brings you joy in your life, if you'd like to go deeper... begin noticing... what really brings ME joy! What makes ME happy?

DON'T POSTPONE THE JOY!