What a wild and, at times, disorienting month this has been! Boy am I relieved and grateful to have Mercury complete its final retrograde for 2019—although we still have a bit more to go with its shadow period!
This month so far has been a time of inner reflection on what’s important, and at times a painful release of what’s blocking us and stealing our energy. Despite the wild ride, it’s also been a month of focus and greater clarity, and for that I am deeply grateful.
Thanksgiving is upon us in the U.S., and for many this is a time of joyful gathering, sharing, and jubilance. For me it also brings up unresolved issues and suppressed emotions around the themes of family, expectations, and loneliness.
Whatever you are experiencing, it is always helpful to discover new ways to bring more nourishment into your inner being. So here are 3 Nourishing Tips that you can serve on your inner plate this holiday season:
#1: The Fullness and the Enough-ness of This Moment
Take mini-breaks throughout the day to direct your awareness to this moment, and notice when you feel ok, fulfilled, content, and safe. If we stop and become still for a moment, most of us have a sense of being all right now, despite future worries, anxieties, pain, and even lack. It requires training our brain differently to see the fullness and the enough-ness of this moment, because the unconscious survival function of our brain has been hardwired for a “negativity bias”—it’s like “Velcro for the negative but Teflon for the positive”.
The holiday season is a great time to strengthen and build the muscles that will lift your sense of gratitude and appreciation for this moment in time, and absorb that fullness from within.
#2: See the Good in Yourself and Really Digest It
Over the years, I have gotten more skilled at seeing the good in me, but it’s still not automatic and I appreciate regular reminders. According to Dr. Rick Hanson, acknowledging your good qualities supports “a healthy sense of worth, lifts mood, helps heal old feelings of inadequacy or shame, and balances self-criticism.” Recognize the truth about your virtues and strengths, such as endurance, patience, determination, decency, empathy, honesty, reliability, compassion, intuition, and other abilities you may have developed like clairvoyance or clairaudience.
Allowing these Truths of who you are to become conscious is vitally important, especially when facing old family patterns and dynamics, where it is all too easy to label and box one another according to incomplete histories, stuck or stunted relationships, judgments and misguided beliefs about one another.
Use the Good in Yourself Practice to stand up for yourself and know that you contain these Truths.
#3: Accumulate Mental Snapshots of Beauty and Goodness
Take lots of mental snapshots of beautiful sunsets or cuddly puppies/cats/other animals, etc. that you can draw from whenever you feel overwhelmed, stressed, critical, or even judged. Pay close attention to the feelings you have when you “swipe” through these mental photos, and stay with these good feelings for at least 5 sets of breaths.
The longer you can stay with these beneficial feelings in conjunction with your breaths, the more they become your inner experience.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read this. Knowing that I can share these thoughts with you truly nourishes me in this moment.
With Gratitude,
Masami
P.S. I’m cooking up some “scrumptious” webinars for December, so please stay tuned!!
#4: BONUS BLESSING for You—A Poem by Larry Yang
May I be loving, open, and aware in this moment.
If I cannot be Loving, open, and aware in this moment,
may I be kind.
If I cannot be kind,
may I be nonjudgemental.
If I cannot be nonjudgemental,
may I not cause harm.
If I cannot not cause harm,
may I cause the least harm possible.