Being Gentle with Ourselves

I recently had the pleasure of connecting with a beautiful soul, Karen Drucker, for a soulful conversation on Soulful Practices Podcast and one of the core themes we kept circling back to was the invitation to be kind and gentle with ourselves.  

The idea of gentleness toward self took me a LONG time to embrace and agree to.  I’m a very Saturian person by design as a Capicorn rising, Saturn square my Midheaven just to highlight a few key aspects in my natal chart.  Additionally, my family of origin was all military and carried a devotion to civil service and work.  That old work ethic and pushing yourself through the pain runs deep in my genetic playbook of life.  

Therefore, I brought a deep ingrained rigor to EVERYTHING. I remember in college I had a horse trip and rolled over top of me during a multi-day show.  As a result of the fall, I had broken ribs, a fractured collarbone and a fractured foot.  Yet, I literally popped myself back up, checked over my horse, who was doing much better than I was, got back on, and literally kept riding the rest of the weekend before heading to the emergency room the following Monday. The choice to stay and ride on was because I felt responsible for helping lead my riding team as captain.  Yep, that is anything but gentle, kind, compassionate, and even loving toward myself and my body. I’d love to tell you this is a one-off story, however it is not. I had TONS of them in my early years up into my thirties when my Body Being eventually gave out and waved a white flag with a series of critical health issues. 

However, my own perfectionist noise to the grindstone traits were not just impacting me.  The hidden impact of this approach to my life was that the people around me felt that pressure and that if they wanted to be connected to me, they needed to match my approach to life too.  This realization was absolutely crushing to me and my love for those around me - my partner, my girls, my friends and co-workers (human and non-human) was the leverage I needed to take this habit and generational trauma response on.  I was no longer going to pass this trait on to my girls or have it impact those around me that I loved.  I needed to find a way to be gentle with myself.  

Karen is an amazing singer, songwriter (over 22 albums!), and author who specializes in teaching and sharing healing songs and chants.  About the time that I was finally understanding the true impact that the way I was interacting with EVERYTHING really was and that it needed to change, I heard her songs for the first time.  I almost passed them by but they kept popping up for me in different areas and with different teachers that I was following, so I took the hint and began to work with her chants in my personal healing work.  

One of the main songs I worked with was a song that she shared during our interview and even led us in a short Self-Work practice on:  “Gentle with Myself”.  

I invite you to listen and sing along with Karen and I by watching the full interview here:

• Youtube: https://youtu.be/IlQgUtT08bk 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3SsEwNf
  
  

Here is an excerpt of the Soulful Practice that I am working with after our conversation: 

I invite you to join us for this week's Soulful Practice:

This week I set the intention to be gentle with myself. 

I ask for the support of Reiki energy to help guide my Awareness to the moment I am:

• Pushing myself too hard and trying to drag parts of me along that need a different pace.
• Judging myself harshly and speaking to myself with the energy of a bully.
• Ignoring a need and telling myself I’m fine.

I ask in those moments to help me engage in a flow of compassion, tenderness and love for myself and the Parts of me that are asking for my attention.  

Help me remember this mantra:

“I will be gentle with myself.”
“I will be tender with myself.”
“I will be easy with myself.”
“I will only go as fast as the slowest part of me feels safe to go.”

(from the lyrics of Karen’s song - Gentle with Myself)

And so it is, peace, peace, peace   

As you travel through the time that is your life and the actions and experiences that are held within each moment and day, I invite you to lean into these lyrics/mantras, especially the last line, “ I will only go as fast as the slowest part of me feels safe to go.”  I found that line to hold the key to beginning to cultivate gentleness with ourselves, others, and our life as a whole.

Offering you light, love, and gentleness,
Michelle