by Emily Billsborough, Wollongbar, Australia
Over the past couple of months I have been developing my relationship with nurturing and what nurturing truly means to me in my life. Each moment is full of different interactions between people, environments and situations. We could put this all down to being part of daily life.
I began to ask myself what happens to me in these moments (daily life) when something that I don’t like occurs, or if I react to my partner, family member, friend, colleague, a stressful situation at work, home, at the shopping centre etc.?
- Do I feel stressed, angry, sad, overwhelmed, frustrated? Or do I still feel like my amazing, lovely and beautiful self?
- Do I ever stop throughout the day to feel what is happening and how I feel when experiencing all of these different feelings, activities, relationships and situations?
How do I cope with what has happened if I have had a ‘bad’ day?
For example, if I had a busy day at work, things weren’t flowing and I was feeling stressed I can find myself being quite hard and driving to get everything done.
Or I may use another activity, such as eating, to cope.
It feels like I can go into an autopilot mode that I have trained or conditioned myself to go into, to not feel what has happened throughout the day and instead use the activity or emotion to override all of my other feelings.
However, over the past few months, I have been working on nurturing. Instead of continuing in the reaction or numbing away from myself, I have begun to introduce moments to allow myself to stop, feel and reflect on what has happened and how I am feeling.
With this knowing I can then choose what I need to do for myself in that very moment: such as taking myself for a walk, drinking a cup of tea and having a bath. Another great tool that I have found to create and make myself a time to stop, reflect and celebrate myself is the use of the Our Cycles Period and Full Moon Diary App.
I use this application to write notes on how I am feeling – my symptoms, moods and feelings – by using its daily journal.
These activities can be to stop the stressful or ‘bad’ situation from continuing on with me. These activities aren’t based on a set list that I refer to from time to time.
Instead they are based on a knowing of what I need to do in the very moment to bring myself back to me. It isn’t about “setting a time” to check in, but allowing myself to live in a rhythm that creates nurturing spaces as needed throughout my day or week.
What if I have had an amazing day and was feeling great?
I still make time to reflect on how my day was and how I feel.
I use nurturing activities to confirm and celebrate me!
And therefore deepen my nurturing of myself.