Nurture Me
| I’m lying prone on pillows, heating pad at my back, computer propped on my knees as I write this missive to you. Somehow, I royally torqued my back and neck a few days ago. Too much butt in chair, too little attention on self-care. Could it be more appropriate that the next series of ‘Creating My Life Roundtables’ is four weeks on self-nurture?! Funny right? So… this blog might be brief… or not. I’m a writer. Once words flow…. you never know. But then again, you might be looking for the exact words my rummaging fingers find, to string together. Been rereading Joan Didion’s book on grief: The Year of Magical Thinking. She writes of her own process, “I write to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means, what I want and what I fear.” This holds true for most writers, including myself. And it certainly explains why and how I shape each Roundtable – to I explore what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, and what it means to me individually, and to us as women, collectively. By far the greatest gift for me in this work is the exploration of ideas and resulting actions with other women. Taking each concept apart, ones we cling to in shadow or light, allows us to let go of that which no longer serves, to see ourselves more clearly and shore up our strengths. When I ask the right questions, it allows you to find your own right answers. In the last series, awareness of ‘blueprints’ became a stepping-stone for venturing further. We identified and deconstructed a lot of old ‘blueprints’ that are simply the emotional imprints from childhood which provide unconscious ‘plans of action’. Some blueprints are good, but many are damaged. Unexamined, they inform how we think, act, and respond—often to our own detriment. Guess what… this same critical thinking absolutely applies to listening to our bodies, minds and hearts to be able to ‘hear’ what we need. Most of us have ‘hit the wall’ at one point or another. During this long year of the ‘siege’, many women are literally holding on, totally spent, fatigued or feeling wrung dry. You know I love what I do. If you’ve spent any time with Mark and I, you know we live with passion and purpose. And we have a great team who support and create with us… so what could be bad?? Being flat on my back for two days makes me painfully aware of my own ‘blueprint’, which treats my body as if it’s a personal donkey. Well, since this poor tired ole donkey plopped down in the middle of the road, refusing to budge, it’s clearly time to reassess how I need to take care of myself with the compassion I so freely flow to others. I am sure I am not alone in this need to be kinder to myself. I look forward to creating this new series and in doing so, I look forward to redefining my own nurturing boundaries. Close or far, I am so glad you are part of this journey.  Nancy |
Love to hear your thoughts.