Move. Rest. Revocation.

My self care is pretty simple and direct these days. I am in a full-speed ahead phase and feeling really, really energised by that. My career has been my focus for several years now, and redirecting that energy into what I want my life to look like has taken everything in me, and all my finesse – for 10 effing years. When the vision to create the Homeopathy blog project arrived 6 years ago, I was sitting in my sanctuary at the time (some women have boyfriends “at the time, I am into serial sanctuaryism.), already scared shitless and labeling my Homeopathy practice as a failure. I was instantly connected to the vision, of course, because it came as an intuitive hit. Those just make sense, and in my experience, they must be followed. Well, frankly, they cannot be denied, which is a logical thing, yes, but mostly it is the literal fact that intuitive hits that are of that magnitude take over our consciousness. That’s the point.

For me, these intuitive hits are my reality, and the practical action of being a creative, an innovator. That is not to say, however, that I find this glamorous. In fact, almost as instantly as the acceptance an wonder of that vision-hit occurred, so did the resentment. I mean, looking back, as I do in cartoon, I immediately panicked – how the HELL would I do that from where I was in life.

Fortunately, as immediately, the answer came: move, rest, revocation. It became the plan, and somehow those words, those phases, have been my keel. It has been so interesting along the way to lean into that knowing. That in itself has been some sort of foundational self-care. l can always check into those phases to get the reality of where I am – literally the reflection of safety in this vision-path. Twice now, the phase has changed; move became rest, and then rest became revocation.

Right now, I am completing the “revocation” phase. To me originally meant a change of career, and I thought it meant re-vocation, as in choose another vocation, another career. Given the blog projects, that was really simple to understand, but when suddenly the revocation phase began, I knew it was something about revoking my “skills” so to speak as a practitioner. This doesn’t really make sense, it’s only a feeling, but it has something to do with the (I believe) the spiritual responsibility of the Hypocratic Oath. I won’t get into that too much, it’s just weird. In short, I suddenly, like the flip of a switch felt that responsibility stop, felt almost as if one of those moving sidewalks had re-started after stopping. Doesn’t matter. I’ve also learned that the sharing of my intuitive process makes me look like a lunatic.

Anyway, to bring this back to my self-lovin’ and how I do my self care to reflect that… In each phase the impetus of the self care was completely different. In the “move” phase, that meant moving houses, literally, and it also meant learn as much as possible, experience as much as possible, and get the experience necessary to complete the vision. I laugh sometimes because I wish it had said “re-con”, my GI Jane character would have liked that better. In that phase my self care was to isolate myself and fill my head, moving as far “out there” as I could without becoming, well, actually insane. It wasn’t necessarily pretty – the physical self care in this phase wasn’t fantastic and included the smoking of as many cigarettes as possible within a 24 hour period. Super glam, really.

Then, when I finally moved to Hamilton, the “rest” phase happened. Funny to look back at it now. It wasn’t immediate, and in hindsight it definitely began 2 Christmases ago when I quit smoking. Hmmm. More about that someday perhaps, but this is not a non-smoking lecture; it’s about resonance. Suddenly, the rest phase started. I rested as much as possible. I didn’t doubt it. I did my best not to buck against it. Ok, that’s a lie. The rest phase included paring down my practice to only my beloved clients, and painting became sparse. Ends were barely meeting, and I had lots of time, so dove into an exercise re-routine. No sale. My body rejected that completely. So, in short, self care in this phase was almost zero movement, sleeping lots in addition to giant naps, eating neurotically well, hella supplements, as little social as possible, as little work as possible. Rest. The only thing I seemed to be allowed to “do” in this phase was write. My body had limitless energy for that process. It came out of my head, and all over my life. Again, looked a lot like lunacy, but I began to notice that when someone would ask what I had done that day, I’d say: “Well, I wrote all morning, and then I…” I couldn’t write that myself!

And now, finally, here I am in the revocation phase. It’s weird too. Sometimes I am sure the phase is just about the career shift happening (successfully, I might add; in the vision, I am absurdly successful and so are many others.) And then other times, I know like I know it is about the Universe erasing the Hypocratic oath I signed, and setting me free from that responsibility, which I know is only in my own mind.

That brings me now to my current state of self-care. It’s all about the mind. It’s my biggest asset, and it is also the place where I experience the most self-corruption. The mind. These days, my self care is all about protecting the mind. It’s so easy for me to get overwhelmed or to start putting myself down. I have definitely been known to experience lack of self confidence! I think of this right now in terms of energy available for the difficult “task” of self confidence and the importance of shunting as much energy there as possible.

To ensure this essential state of mind, I have “rested” from people who don’t make me feel good about myself. To combat the drain of that, I am noticing when I start to feel bad in their presence, and choosing me at all costs. That takes care of the social pressure, but it doesn’t feed my soul. This week, I consciously cultivated a couple of social for no reason meetings. I consciously listened to why those people chose to say yes to my invitation. They like me. It’s that simple. My self care in this regard is to make a commitment to acknowledging interactions like this often. I’d like to make some more new relationships like this.