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A Journey of Self-Love To live your dreams is to give a gift to the world. By sharing your unique talents, skills, abilities, and passions, you help make this planet a better place. Now is the time to give all you can, whether it is by raising children with love and integrity, fulfilling a desire to record your songs, traveling around the world, writing poetry and publishing a favorite poem, starting a positive organization, or volunteering your time to help others. Discovering your dreams and taking the steps to achieve them is a journey of your soul’s expression that gives your life meaning and nourishes your mind, body, and spirit. In my visioning work with groups and individuals over the past 15 years, I find that one of the biggest challenges in dream building is practicing self-love. Because the very nature of personal development takes us into unfamiliar territory, we can feel vulnerable, shy, and even resistant. Our inner critics kick into action and can deter us from trying new ideas. To counteract this stern censor, we need ample doses of encouragement and support. We need to feel the freedom to experiment. Over time, by deepening our self-love, we will open to the exciting possibilities that are patiently waiting for us. It seems that self-love should be the most natural thing in the world, like the sun rising each morning, the moon’s waxing and waning, and your heart’s steady beat. But for many of us, loving ourselves is a lifelong process of self-development that requires ongoing attention, just as a garden does. If you were lucky, the seeds of self-love were carefully planted at your birth and cared for in your early years, giving you a firm foundation to know yourself. But if, like most of us, your early life (and present one) is challenged, you may need to gather your own seeds, find a sunny spot to break new ground, and dig your own garden. This type of gardening is the foundation of dream building. This month, challenge yourself to work on your dreams by finding new ways to deepen your self-love. Carve out some personal time to feed and nourish yourself. Reach out to a friend or partner and support each other. The following are some approaches you may wish to explore that I have found most helpful in the dream building and life development process. Teacher, workshop leader, and best-selling author Shakti Gawain is internationally known for her work on personal and planetary consciousness. In her book Developing Intuition, Gawain explains the process of working with intuition, how natural it is, and ways to practice using it with increasing success. She believes that awakening intuition is one of the "most important things we can do for our self-development." According to Gawain, we are "taught from an early age to try to accommodate those around us, to follow certain rules of behavior, to suppress our spontaneous impulses, and to do what is expected of us." Thus, we learn to squash our dreams and tender feelings. By reclaiming our intuition, we can honor our inner knowing and align with the magicians and warriors inside of us. This is how we bring our gifts out in the world. Some suggestions for developing your intuition include relaxing your mind and body through meditation and yoga or becoming an "intuition detective" by observing what you are feeling and sensing, as well as noting the synchronicities that happen on a daily basis. Another exercise I find useful is to take a few moments in your morning meditation to ask your intuitive self a question. For example, "What would be most useful for me to know today to help me fulfill my dreams?" Following your dreams may be your life’s work and support you financially, or it may be what you do as a labor of love or to express your creativity. So often, people judge their dreams by equating them with financial status, but rather than your bank account balance or the number of stocks, CDs, and IRAs you have (or don’t have!), Shakti Gawain teaches that prosperity is more of an internal state than an external one. She states that prosperity "is the experience of having plenty of what we truly need and want in life, material or otherwise." To become more prosperous, Gawain recommends that we develop our ability to bring what we need and want into our lives and practice recognizing, appreciating, and enjoying what we already have. True prosperity is an attitude of gratitude that develops as we learn to follow our heart’s desires and live in balance with our innermost selves. Anodea Judith, Ph.D., somatic therapist, leading authority on the chakra system and the healing arts and author of three books on the chakras, including the classic book Wheels of Life: A User’s Guide to the Chakra System, writes, "Our body is the home for our spirit. It is the physical manifestation of all that happens to us, the hardware in which all our programs run." In diving more deeply into the ocean of self-love, take time to heal your body and energy system. There are numerous ways to do this, including studying the chakra system. Chakras (the Sanskrit word for "wheel" or "disk") correlate to seven basic energy centers in the body, which are connected to physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. At any given time, one or more of the chakras may become depleted or over-stimulated and need balancing and restoration. In working on your dreams, you may find it helpful to work with the first chakra. Located at the base of the spine, this chakra represents the element earth, and is related to your survival instincts, your sense of grounding, your connection to your body and the physical plane, and your ability to manifest. In her book The Sevenfold Journey: Reclaiming Mind, Body & Spirit through the Chakras (co-authored with Selene Vega), Judith offers innovative and practical exercises to help nurture your physical, spiritual, and emotional healing process. Try examining your early programming by writing down all your feelings about past and present experiences of survival and trust. Then write some ideas about how you can update and change them. Another key to self-love lies in creative self-expression. Many years ago I had a secret dream, which was to sing loudly and joyfully in my car without being self-conscious. Whenever I slowed down on city streets or stopped at a traffic light, I noticed that I immediately stopped singing. With this in mind, in 1984 I took a workshop with Susan Osborn, who teaches a singing technique she calls Seeds of Singing or Silence and Song. With her loving encouragement, participants explore singing songs without words, being witnessed by others, and playing with the voice, and I, like many others who participated, opened up to a new level of joy and freedom with my singing self-expression. Osborn writes, "Singing is a practice; a way to center, contact who you are, and from that place create a gift of beauty and truth to share with others." Shawna Carol, a composer, musician, recording artist, and teacher of another improvisational singing technique called SpiritSong says, "Our voices are our most intimate way to express our ‘Self.’ " For working with your voice, she offers the following exercise: Find a place at home or out in nature where you can sing without disturbance. Stand with your feet shoulder length apart. Feel your feet on the ground and yourself supported by the gravity of the earth. Take a few deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth. After the third deep breath, let your exhale become a sigh. Then, let the sigh become a sound. Extend this sound, breathing in as needed. Experiment with this as part of your morning meditation or when you feel stressed. Since I was 11 years old, my journal (then diary) has been one of my best friends and the place where I record my innermost feelings. Polly Sames, who teaches writing workshops and retreats in Seattle, offers "Writing a Handmade Life," a course on using journal writing to tap into your inner life, where your "true guidance and wisdom reside." Sames began writing 13 years ago when her "life was fraught with inner secrets, doubts, and turmoil." Now she says, she is "a woman living much more openly and true to myself." She believes that many people "sacrifice their unique voice, gift, and way of being in the world" and that by using a journal, you can develop a deeper awareness of "your interior life." In the age of computers, journaling can often be left out of the loop. This week, find some old journals and read them for clues on your life dreams, or buy a new journal and begin to write regularly. Within you lives a wild woman or man who is free and uninhibited and holds the seeds of your life dreams. Discovering this part of yourself can lead to your wholeness. Patricia Monaghan, who has spent more than twenty years researching and writing about alternative visions of the earth, presents a new approach for teen girls to explore their wild nature in her newest book, Wild Girls: The Path of the Young Goddess. Here, Monaghan focuses on the revival of girl power by offering stories of the Goddess that correspond to the part of us that is always questing, wild, and free. Another perspective comes from teacher, artist, alchemist, and self-proclaimed wild woman Gloria Taylor Brown, who believes that "wildness is our birthright" and that exploring it "allows us to step into a more powerful position of being who we are, complete and whole." Taylor Brown says that we have all been discouraged to explore our wildness because it is a "threat to the status quo." To remedy this, she suggests reading and researching myths that portray our wild nature. You may also want to try howling at the moon! As you do the inner and outer work to discover and create your life dreams, remember to love yourself as you are today. Each of us is filled with gifts of the spirit. The earth is calling you to live your dreams. Can you hear her? Now is the time to begin. Explore your dreams and spirit at the tenth annual Women of Wisdom conference February 15-23, with more than 100 exciting events, including presentations by Anodea Judith, Shakti Gawain, Gloria Taylor Brown, Polly Sames, Shawna Carol, and Susan Osborn, plus a special concert with Susan Osborn and Libby Roderick. For more information, call (206) 782-3363 or go to <http://www.womenofwisdom.org/>. Susan Chiat is a writer, marketing and public relations consultant, and personal life coach living in Seattle, Washington. She celebrates her dreams and wildness and can be reached at <schiat@aol.com>. |