I recently returned from a week away (and can highly recommend Split, Croatia), and once again, I was reminded of how necessary self care is.

Emphasis on necessary.

As a healer, I see a common pattern - people often wait until things are really bad before they seek support. This isn’t a judgment or a call-out. It’s deeply human to try and juggle everything, to keep going so we don’t risk dropping it all. I really get it. But my hope is that this post brings to the forefront of your awareness what self care truly means.

So much of what we see online under the guise of "self care" is really just surface care. At best, a temporary fix. At worst, a coping mechanism that leaves us more depleted.

One of my favourite shows, Parks and Rec, has this iconic scene where two characters rush off on a shopping spree shouting, “Treat yo’ self!” as they swipe their cards with abandon. Hilarious? Absolutely. But also painfully accurate for how many of us attempt to soothe or “care” for ourselves - ...

(i.e. Are you showing yourself the same respect you’d like within your relationships with others?)

As we approach the end of the year, we often look back to see what has worked, and what has not. And I find that any time something is not working, there is an opportunity to delve within, to understand what is ‘not working’ within. Our outer world reflects our inner, providing an opportunity to check in with what truly aligns in the present moment.

Over the past few weeks, issues around Honour and Respect have been discussed in sessions and classes. So many of us feel dissatisfied with our relationships, feeling that they are lacking in love, connection, consideration.
But the reality is that another cannot provide something that you yourself refuse to allow, or offer yourself.

How often do you diminish yourself through the choices you make?
How frequently do you put another before you, creating your own suffering?
Do you respect your time? Your energy? Your freedom? Your body? Your mind...

On some level, we all fight the experience of Love.
We ask, beg, and plead for love, and then reject loving experiences as they are offered. There is always a complex mix of ideas, images, and feelings that float to the surface as we consider what the word love means. The layers of misaligned ideas develop as a result of millennia of human beings grasping at love, but failing to truly understand. 

As we develop relationships with partners, lovers, friends, we know that we want to create loving experiences. But we fail in our attempts to inspire, create, cajole, or evoke love within ourselves or another, because we have too many conflicting beliefs about what love really is.

Those who have lived in abusive relationships will often associate love with abuse. If ‘the people who love you, leave you’, we believe that love leads to abandonment. We have associations based on our experiences, but we are blaming love for the areas in which love has actually been lacking.
Love does not create ab...