I’m so glad you found your way here. I’m even happier to be sharing this journey with you.
And now you're probably asking yourself, what journey?
This journey, well we can just call it life. Embracing it, Empowering ourselves to live it and finally Growing it to be what we envision.
Day 7: Today, affirmations were much needed!
Tell me in the comments how your day 6 went! I’m so excited to be sharing my journey but want to cheer you on as well.
Journey Journal Entry 8.28
I definitely learned today that I need to meet my body where it’s at each day and allow myself to be content and happy there. This isn’t an easy concept for me and in the past I would just push past anything my body was telling me. Something was always more important than my health. This should never be the case, and won’t be the case moving forward.
Having any kind of illness takes a toll on the body, some illnesses are just outward facing and others aren’t. I struggle with this for myself each day, I don’t feel good but when I look in the mirror I don’t look “sick” so I just move on and push through the day. This isn’t healthy and, truth be told, has probably caused more damage than good. For me, having Polycythemia Vera (PV) doesn’t make me look sick. With that said, it makes me feel like complete crap with no warning, even if I was having a perfectly fine day. For example, I can have tremors come on at any minute or muscle weakness causing me to not be able to walk or use my arms. This is all temporary but it’s the frustration that I need to work through during these times. As angry and frustrated as I get, I’m absolutely grateful that my PV is only secondary and my heart goes out to any who have primary.
This hidden sickness, as I like to call it, was causing me some serious issues through last night and into the morning and I knew I needed to practice my softening, soothe and allow. Since my legs weren’t really working I did my meditation in bed, fine, no big deal. Everything is fine. My husband grabbed me some ice packs (helps the weakness/numbness), helped me get comfy and even brought my oil diffuse near me. He got me all set up, dimmed the lights and let me work on myself.
Working my soften, soothe and allow meditation
Soften:
Finding a comfortable sitting or lying position and being to scan and really take inventory of your body. What hurts? What is speaking to you? What feels heavy or light? Now focus on those areas and begin to soften them. You can physically place a hand on the area to bring awareness. I also choose to repeat “I hold this area in loving awareness.”
Soothe:
This step is a continuation from the above (soften). Continue to speak reaffirming words to soothe the area of the strong emotion (or pain caused by emotion). Some other variations of soothing words: “I will be kind to myself.” “I will love myself through all emotions.”
Allow:
This is sometimes a harder step for me because it involves acceptance and letting go. Not always the easiest. Here we’ve recognized the area and emotion. Now we need to accept it and make peace so that the rest of us can get on with our day. I repeat “I acknowledge your here, I will accept this feeling, I will allow you to come and go as you please. But I will not allow you to control my whole body.” I continue to repeat this focusing on softening the feeling, soothing it and then accepting to share that space temporarily.
Until tomorrow, have a wonderful and restful evening!
XOXO
Meg