Welcome to the ongoing column series, Living A Radically Engaged Life™. This year we have traveled deeper into what it means to live radically engaged and how living this way will bring out the very best you have to offer and best of all, to be able to sustain a higher level of happiness and joy. One of the foundational pieces to being a RēL (Radically Engaged Living) WOMAN is the ability to know how to make yourself a priority.
In honor of our Holiday Season, in this issue I invite you to re-engage with your commitment to Radical Self-Care™.
I remember when I seriously dove into my spiritual journey and committed to “do my work”. Meaning that I realized the way I looked at and interacted with the world was something that I could change by just becoming conscious of it and then choosing something different. I call this experience “waking up!”.
Well, I felt very liberated from my old imprisoning beliefs and felt I had done so much “work” on myself. AND THEN the Holidays arrived. Somehow the Holidays have a way of bringing up things that we have not had to deal with, possibly all year. During a radio show I heard Dr. Wayne Dyer say, “You think you are conscious . . . that you are evolved . . . that you are spiritual — just go visit your family”. I laughed out loud because that is exactly what I found. The old, limited thinking, wounded soul would show up to the family holiday party instead of the new me!
It took me years to realize that the Holidays require special awareness and extra Radical Self-Care™. It is a real testing ground to see just how well we actually do practice self-care. Just how committed we really are to making ourselves a priority.
During the Holiday Season we need extra awareness and care to be at our best. So, this Holiday Season I share with you THREE Secrets to finding JOY this Season.
The Holiday Season isn’t just a season. It’s a FEELING.
– Marianne MacKenzie-Scott
In my work I have discovered that my female clients have a much harder time cultivating self-care. It makes them feel “selfish” and selfish in our culture is a dirty word. We have been taught that giving is right and good, that wanting or desiring is selfish. Desire is the way we create. You, the beautiful creator that you are must create from desire or you will have a life filled with people, things and experiences that do not light you up. And without being lit up from the inside out, you will not bring your beautiful gifts to this world. We have got to get your light burning bright!
Top Indicators You Need Radical Self-Care™ this Holiday.
- Just the mention of the Holidays makes you cringe (when did you become scrooge!)
- You would really like to just “light a match” to all the Holiday boxes in storage . . . that way you would have an excuse to end all the years and years of tradition that have gotten too heavy to manage.
- You don’t know HOW you will muster the energy required to even put the tree up . . . little own everything else it takes to make this Season Bright (eye roll).
- You actually LOVE the Holidays and the idea of it all . . . yet it never ends up FEELING as awesome as YOU desire. (Maybe this year if you just do MORE of _____)
- You have thought about how to bring a better YOU to the season and your family, yet you just don’t know how.
- You really just desire a “sick day” for a justified reason to check-out and DO NOTHING!
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Your REAL DESIRE is to find deeper meaning, PEACE and Joy in this Holiday Season. |
The question is HOW?
I’ve learned that when we care for ourselves deeply and deliberately we actually begin to care for others this way as well. We tell the truth (especially to ourselves) and we do things from DESIRE instead of a feeling of obligation (a sticky heavy energy). Radical Self-Care™ allows us to understand how caring for our emotional, physical, mental and spiritual well-being is the most powerful way we can align to our true nature – our best-self.
You will feel an energy and alignment that will guide you toward deeper happiness and greater JOY.
When we are consciously caring for ourselves we are able to move with the dynamic flow of life. Our emotional health is stabilized, and we feel the solid foundation of being able to balance what life throws at us. Just the normal holiday issues can move us far from center causing us hours or days to regain solid footing.
Self-care is our responsibility. The way you care for yourself is an indicator of how evolved as a human being you are. REALLY? Yes, it’s true. An evolved person understands that our body/mind/soul are all interconnected and taking extreme care of all are imperative to experiencing JOY.
3 Secrets to Finding Your Joy This Season
Connect to yourself . . . your desires and pleasures.
- Get in your body and really FEEL with your senses. Breathe, dance, bathe, wear velvet and satin pajamas all day!
- Journal or take time to daydream. Reflect on this year’s highs and lows. What were the lessons and opportunities. Did you take them and why or why not. Would you make different choices if you could do it over?
- Find Meaning. What is special to you right now in your life and why? Journal about it and plan to do more of what has meaning.
Create space [on your calendar & in your day]
- Remove all the “have-to-do’s”. So what! if you don’t make it to every event. Ask yourself “is anyone going to die if I don’t do this?”
- Feel the discomfort in knowing there are 100’s of things that “should” be getting done and decide to just do none of it. Liberation sistah!
DO what lights YOU up
- Go for a drive to see the lights. . . alone! AND with your favorite music turned way up.
- Enjoy a piping cup of hot chocolate AND a fresh cinnamon roll from your favorite bakery (and eat every bite!)
- Don’t put out all of the boxes of decorations this year. Tell them you are “honoring simplicity” this year.
This year will FEEL different! You’ve got this and while change is never easy, it can actually be quite an adventure. Enjoy the ride beautiful. For added support I encourage you to connect to our RēL Woman TRIBE on Facebook and start to feel the difference of being connected to likeminded and RēL Women.
Life is meant to be lived BIG and, yet nobody can do this for you. It requires you deciding to make a change, to engage in your life in new and expanded ways. Happy Holidays!
XO,
Marianne
P.S. Want to learn more? I believe the greatest gift you can give to another is your BEST SELF. I’m so passionate about caring for ourselves especially during the Holidays and have created a special online program to support you through the Holidays and beyond. And it is a fabulous gift to give to those who also need greater self-care. How YOU can find JOY this Season: Radical Self-Care™ Holiday Edition get support [click here]
