A break from pushing brings realization

slowing down to observe ...

As I am working diligently at creating the next group challenge where we will focus on energy work, reiki, shamanism, and crystal chakra balancing (I'm almost done gang!) I've got to share a little side story as it just might pertain to or resonate some of us in the group. By the way, if you are reading this and have a Facebook account, go over to Refinery Esthetics Wellness Warriors group and ask to join in! If you are not on Facebook but are interested in what these challenges bring, stay tuned on workshops down the road.

Most of you know, December was filled with sick little ones and then the buzz of the holidays with family visiting from out of town. January was filled with the grand opening and getting settled a bit more in the new space.

One of the quotes that was driven into my head was one that basically told me I had to always be doing something in order to be something/someone. As time marches on, I find I am much more positively productive when I have had my fill of quiet time.

While February has a ton of people/groups doing self-love challenges, fitness challenges and more, this is the month I've decided to take time off from pushing and doing.

After some reflection, I realized it was necessary for me to take a quiet minute and just focus on the daily ins and outs for a while. Focus on work (after all, it is show season so that's a lot in and of itself), and taking all my wonderful clients, and being a mom and wife.

Interestingly enough, it gave me time to pick up something I've intentionally been procrastinating on. I have had a book for six months. It stares me in the face and I have made deliberate choices not to pick it up as its main goal is to have you hold a mirror up to yourself and work on parts of yourself you’ve become way too accustomed to.

I finally (through a friend’s guidance and urging in another group I’m in) picked it up and began doing the work. Though it is still in the infancy stages, I'm learning a lot and I'm excited to use this as the base of our next challenge together!

That's me circa 1995 maybe? Me and my cat, Jedi. We both had amazing hair but mine was permed!

As a child, I am sure I was many things but one thing that stood out a lot was how awkward I felt - frequently. There were times people mistook me as a boy due to my short haircut and my dominantly direct nature which was deemed as masculine. I remember sometime after college at a gathering someone was complimenting me on how beautiful I had become and went on to use the analogy of the book The Ugly Duckling. While they were fully engrossed in cocktail hour and were making their attempt at a compliment, the same old record began to play on repeat in my head.
You're not good enough. You're not pretty enough. You're not smart enough. You don't fit in enough. You are not enough. They just confirmed it - you are sub-par.
These are the stories I had been telling myself since elementary school. These were the stories that continued throughout college when it was difficult for me to make brand new friends my first year away from home by myself.

Sound familiar to anyone else reading this?
Have you ever had thoughts of inadequacy?
Have you ever magnified your imperfections?
Have you ever compared yourself to others?

I'm guessing I'm not alone on this one.

When we have cycles of thoughts like this, we truly believe the lies we tell ourselves. This becomes our reality, delusions and all, this is what we bring to the world. We bring it in our words and actions. We bring it to friendships, romances, and our workplace.

Judgments.

While judgment is there to be a good thing in most circumstances, what begins to happen is we transfer these judgments we've imposed on ourselves to those around us. It's easier to deflect, after all, isn't it? We can become over-critical, mean, and a downright drag to be around.

It all stems from inside.

And if we were the ones who put the thought patterns there, then we are the ones responsible for working every single day to get them out. Nobody else is in charge of that but us. We can sit behind the screen of "women empowering women" and "lifting each other up" but we also need to hold each other, primarily ourselves, accountable for our own internal health first. Life isn't always a wall of inspirational quotes to get you through the day.
Empower does not equal Enable.

How this all comes full circle is that these stories we tell ourselves....these words... become so ingrained in who we are that there are cells in our body etched with negativity. There are years of trauma, created by us, where self-loathing has decided to make a cozy little home. This form of self-abuse, when left buried and unfaced or unhealed, will slowly begin to manifest itself as physical pain.

Muscle tension, headaches, chronic illness, or more severe forms of sickness such as fibromyalgia or cancer.

So when we know all of this, it almost seems silly to leave all of the junk buried.

While the initial thought behind the new energy challenge was to simply go through the basics of Reiki and crystals - lightly touching upon surface energy-related topics, it had become more transparent to me that this is a challenge of substance.

My hope is that this challenge brings forth some pretty hard questions, that require more than 30 seconds of thought, pushing us to go deeper within ourselves, relying on the group members for accountability and loving support, with the end goal or result being each of the participants to have a greater self-awareness.

The more aware we are of our thoughts, beliefs, and actions - (mindfulness) - the easier it is to catch ourselves when we notice we're going down the same destructive path. We should be able to recognize those same yucky vibes and say to ourselves, "Okie Dokie - I know this feeling stems from (insert the thing) but is that what is really happening this time or am I getting too involved in over-analyzing" or something to that affect...and if we can talk ourselves out of the downward spiral (flipping the script) then we can face each day with a new attitude, a secure strength, and a better sense of who we are.

We'll go through each chakra, what it represents, thoughts/feelings/physicalities associated with the chakra, mantras, crystals that work best with these chakras, food or teas that help balance the area...along with how Reiki and Shamanism can help bring new light to areas too bogged down to unclog on our own.

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So, if you've made it this far and this is something that intrigues you, let me know!
If you want to join in the challenge in the Facebook group, I've linked the group below.
As soon as the challenge is finished being created we will jump in, roll up our sleeves and get to work on ourselves.

We'll consider it part of our spring cleaning process.
In with the good - out with the bad!

If these topics aren't your jam I promise to make my next set of workshop material straight up skincare related and am always looking for topics I can cover based on questions posed by all of you - i.e. gimme that feedback and ask questions as they come to you!


Don't forget about the specials and promotions I have going on through April 12th - and remember to set up your appointments ahead of time to avoid disappointment!

xoxo
Brooke