The Little Girl Inside

I want to befriend the anxious little girl who lives inside me. I want her to know I love her and support her. I want to tell her that we are doing great and that we will be okay no matter what. But it's sometimes hard to get her messages. I find breathing deeply helps though. She also seems to remember she's ok and can enjoy life again when I'm moving or creating--through dance, photography, nature walks, hiking, collaging, making jewelry, planning workshops. When she is put in a stressful situation or feels pressure of any kind, she begins to tighten and churn. Sometimes only time can rid her of these sensations, even after moving and breathing deeply. This is why it's so important to remind her that these feelings of fear will change and we will once again feel the joy of life. Living in the moment is key but requires constant, LIFELONG commitment, daily practice and self-love, because with anything that you are practicing comes goof-ups and being hard on her is only going to exacerbate the anxiety.

I now see this little girl as beautiful and courageous and intelligent. She's the little girl I was when I was young. She's the part of me who was too scared to develop into an adult. And maybe that was her purpose all along, her intention, to help balance out the rest of my adult self in order to stay young and full of creativity, energy and hope. Because without this little girl, I wouldn't be able to experience the sheer joy of nature and love and life in the same way. I love skipping. I love feeling joyful. I love giggling. The little girl keeps me balanced and filled with zeal for life. After all, when I think about where the sensations of my joy are located in my physical body, more often than not they are in the same places where I feel the anxiety. Anxiety and excitement create virtually the same sensations for me, only one is associated with negative or scary thoughts and emotions and the other with joyful and positive thoughts, albeit sometimes scary too.

When I'm feeling joyful and excited about life, I welcome the scary parts and do the things that scare me anyway, which is where my courage is born. As I practice everyday, I will continue to tell the little girl inside me that she is amazing and talented and so brave and so loved. So needed. So joyful. She must only stop and breathe in that energy so that the situation can shift and the anxiety will dissipate with practice. It will never go away completely. We need anxiety for our safety sometimes but as we shift, we can lean towards excitement and zest for life instead, in order to train our thoughts and emotions to respond differently or shift and lean more quickly towards joy.

Declutter To Destress

For the past 7 days, I've been practically eating, breathing, and dreaming about moving boxes!  There is something about changing homes that stirs up your soul, wakes you up and helps you reevaluate all that you have in your life.  I set out with the huge challenge to declutter much of the papers and mementos I had accumulated over the years and I'm pleased to report that I was able to let go of so much--bags and bags to the recycle bin and even more bags and bags and boxes and boxes of things dropped off at the thrift store to donate.  It brings me much peace to pass along items that might be helpful to others and at the same time to free up space both in our home and in myself.  Remembering that I will always keep my memories and that I can take a picture of something to remember it by, rather than keeping everything, helped me let go of so much.  I do have even more to let go of though.  Unfortunately I ran out of time and had to pack away a few boxes of papers and things I haven't gone through so my decluttering challenge continues, which it should, because if we are not constantly reconsidering what we choose to keep in our homes and lives, we will accumulate new things and end up with too much clutter around us again.  I want to create a regular practice of it--a spiritual practice in a sense--to keep moving forward and get unstuck when I may feel like I'm drowning in papers.  If I can regularly evaluate all that I have, I will have more space for breathing, meditating, thinking, writing, dreaming and loving life.  I do not need things to make me whole.  On the contrary, freeing myself of so many things makes me feel more whole and free.  I'm not there yet, but maybe as I said, this is a constant process and something I need to work on on a regular basis.  Similar to studying stress management, there will always be events that bring us stress, but the more we read about managing and responding to the stress, rather than just reacting, the better and faster we'll recover and the more peace we'll feel during and after times of stress.  And clutter stresses me out.  So it makes sense to include decluttering as one of my stress management practices.

Do you have a stress management practice of your own?  Please share with us!  :)