Hey, folks! If you are wondering why you haven’t heard from me in a while, I took a short hiatus at the end of June and went on a bit of an Spiritual & Emotional Pilgrimage. While away, I visited the Earth’s “Heart Chakra” which lies within England & Ireland. My journey led me to many incredible Spiritual Energy sites such as Stonehenge, Frome, Glastonbury, Avebury, Cork, Killarney, Galway, and the ancient Celtic sites of County Meath & County Wicklow. From there, I went on to Barcelona, Spain where I attended a week-long Creativity Workshop by day and completely immersed myself in the inspired work of Antoni Gaudi by night. While there, I was lucky enough to serendipitously discover that Krishna Das was doing a workshop the night before I was scheduled to leave which was a most fitting finale to a week filled with deep introspection and self expression. I wrapped it all up with a few more (hot) days in London of simply walking, meditating and connecting with everything and everyone around me.
I’m sure I’ll have lots more to tell you about my journey in the weeks to come but, in the meantime, here is the article I forgot to post before I left – 3rd in the Self-Love Sisterhood series.
Enjoy!
(From June 11, 2013)
This week, I’d like to talk more about the specifics of what Self-Love is all about and how The Self-Love Sisterhood puts it into practice.
At our first meeting, I supplied the girls with a “handbook” filled with all kinds of things that I felt should become the tenets of our organization but first, I wanted to make it clear that my participation in the group was not only that of facilitator and mentor but also as participant. This distinction is important because, in order for me to help the group members on their own journeys I had to model transparency and vulnerability myself. If you think that’s easy, let me tell you, its not. Managing the fine balance between my roles as therapist, mentor, student and friend is one of the most challenging experiences of my life and I often ask myself what I was thinking when I got myself into this. But thankfully, I am surrounded by 6 incredibly courageous and supportive women who are “ready” to do this work and whatever challenges I may be facing, I am reminded that we are all in this together and that vulnerability, and the connection it leads to, works both ways. As I said in “Part Two” of this series, one of the things I needed to learn is that, no matter what the situation or expectation, I am “enough”, just as I am.
They say that, if you really want to learn how to do something, teach it, and that statement was never more appropriate. Sometimes, just “showing up” feels like it will take everything I have but, as I step back and ask myself who I want to be and what I want to teach and, more importantly, “what is the act of self love in this situation?”, I realize that the only way to learn anything is show up and practice.
Until next week,
Thanks for reading and All Blessings to You…
Tracy
If you want to know more about The Self-Love Sisterhood (NOT for women only, btw) and any future programs, talks or workshops, please “like” our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SelfLoveSisterhood You can also follow me personally on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TracyBRichards and Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tbr.therapy
