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Posted by Ash on February 20th, 2008 in Mind-Body-Spirit

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Today begins a new cycle and Goddess energy. The focus is on Balance and the Goddess is Oshun, the Nigerian Goddess of Universal Love and Sensuality.

Learning to create balance between giving to others and taking care of ourselves is a tricky thing sometimes.

Most of my readers should know by now how much I believe in setting aside time for ourselves and in reducing stress. The focus of this month is exactly that. Balance.

We can’t give if we are drained and stressed.
Here are some of the symptoms of stress and serious fatigue: Headaches (can be migraines) backaches, neckaches, high blood pressure, tightness in the chest, heart palpatations, stomach problems, over or under-eating and of course just feeling drained and non-motivated.
Gosh, I had every single one of those symptoms some years ago! I developed GERD, had a chronic cough, didn’t sleep at night, had night terrors, started gaining weight and was just so tired.
I was in a very unhappy place with strained, dysfunctional family relationships and I felt unfulfilled, yet, I had no idea what it was that I wanted to do to feel fulfilled.

I am no longer in that place and all of the above symptoms are gone. I have had several people ask me what I did to change things, so I thought this month would be a good time to post some of my experiences and what helped me as well as feature wonderful products/services that can aid in getting back to a serene life!

I was reading that “as children, we are taught to tell mommy or daddy where it hurts (physically) but we are seldom taught to tell when we are hurting emotionally.”

Wow, that is so true. It’s easy to see how we can let things build up and not really even notice until our body has to finally start shouting at us with such symptoms as above.

In looking back on what I started doing that helped me, one of the biggest changes was to start understanding what my emotions were telling me. If we feel bad or sad or hurt, that is for a reason.
Our emotions are neither good nor bad and shouldn’t be feared, they are simply letting us know if we are on the right track. If we are feeling a negative emotion, then we aren’t going towards health and we aren’t being true to ourselves. If we are feeling happy and good, then we are on track.
OK, so that is so easy to say, but what does it really mean?
I had to learn to stop and recognize how things made me feel. How do I feel when around certain people or when I involve myself in certain activities? Good? Stressed? Angry? Those are my clues as to whether the situation is healthy or not. Emotions become toxic when we allow them to persist, unresolved, rather than working on understanding what they are telling us.
Next, after making it a habit to ‘check in with myself’, I had to understand what my feelings were saying to me.
Your True Self, or some call it your Higher Self knows it is worthy of respect, goodness, kindness, happiness and all of the things in life that we desire.
When someone treats you in a negative way, harms you or you are involved in something that makes you feel bad, it is because at that moment, you and your True Self are not in agreement. That negative emotion is an indication that you are being treated in a way that is not really who you are.
So, the first step is in knowing who you really are.
What you believe about yourself is how others will treat you.

So, start by asking yourself: What will bring you permanent happiness and bliss?

What would you like to be feeling?

And, what do you believe about yourself?

to be con’t…

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