by Victoria Lister, Brisbane, Australia
Recently I attended a meeting of a group of women who regularly get together to discuss issues that arise in our daily lives. It was a beautiful chance to catch up with friends and re-cap on all we’ve covered so far. During the meeting, I found myself drawn to a very simple, yet key, aspect of our latest get-together – nurturing – and how we can all go deeper, and what that truly entails.
Simply, it was presented to us that although we have all come a long way in terms of developing a more nurturing connection with ourselves as women, we can all go much further by looking at what this means for us personally, and how we might develop simple routines and techniques we can use to support us in our daily lives.
Many of us could feel the truth of this, with several women commenting on the things they have found (or suspected) prevent them from being truly nurturing towards themselves. One woman linked it to a lack of self-worth, with the premise that we cannot truly nurture ourselves if we don’t believe it is worth giving that time, attention and loving support to ourselves.
Bing! On went a light for me. Like many of us present, I had only recently experienced a pull to bring a deeper level of nurturing to myself, evidenced by the fact that in the last couple of weeks, I’d actually been able to let myself take a mid-morning nap on not one, but two occasions.
Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But allowing myself to nap when I need to has been something I have resisted for a long, long time.
Since the advent of my lovely new gauzy curtains several months prior, I had been conscious of looking longingly at my bed, feeling how lovely it would be to lie down and gaze out at the world through their hazy softness. Time and again I pushed the impulse to rest aside, always finding an excuse not to, usually to do with work. I say several months, however the truth is, I’ve been doing versions of ignoring what my body would love for many, many years, albeit without the same degree of consciousness.
Yet two weeks ago the impulse to lie down was so strong I simply went and did so, without argument. Amazing… it was easy, natural and delicious! I lay down with my trusty eye pillow (the curtains didn’t even get a look in) and let myself feel where my body was at, and my connection to myself – whether I had a sense of myself internally – and drifted into sleep. I woke naturally after about half an hour on both occasions and actually felt refreshed, too (something else I had not been able to achieve before – in the past I would wake feeling heavy and awful if I slept during the day, even faintly nauseous).
So what made the difference? I feel it’s the self-worth issue: over time, how I feel about myself has (positively) increased to the degree that I can now honour myself – more than others and what I imagine they need (as plays out in the way I approach work). Now I know I am most definitely worth it.
However, I can feel this newly felt, precious realisation – that I am worth it – is tenuous, and my focus now needs to be on strengthening it. I can see that this will be particularly important given my recent decision to transition from home-office work to work in an organisation: if I find it hard to honour myself in my own space, how will I be in a place that’s not my own and doesn’t have a bed conveniently to hand?
A few years ago, I recall hearing Natalie Benhayon (a presenter on women’s health) describe her work-day routines, one of which included taking a nap in her car on her lunch break, which didn’t quite make the kind of sense then as it does to me now. However, it’s quite possible I won’t be able to take a car to work in the future, so what then? Clearly, I will need to make it a priority to find a way, a time, a place that works for me in my new workplace… perhaps not even to sleep, but just to focus on feeling me, feeling my body and strengthening that internal sense of self.
So, over the next month I’m going to put myself on a self-worth and nurturing ‘programme’, and see what comes up, remaining open to whatever that may be. It will be perfect timing too – when we next meet it will be to celebrate International Women’s Day, where there will be a presentation – the theme of which is “Nurturing the woman within: reclaiming your natural rhythm within our modern times”. How wonderfully spot on is that?!
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