“The grass is greener where you water it.” Neil Barringham
Many women’s lives are so filled they are literally overflowing. Women carry an extraordinary amount of responsibility and are scheduled every moment of the day. Wishing they had more hours in the day to address their ever expanding “to do” lists, they find their schedules packed to the brim with little space for flow.
If you are a woman who takes care of everyone and everything in your life, you may struggle to find space for yourself and your own needs. It is easy to get hooked into a cycle of over giving when we define ourselves through our role as the nurturing caregiver. We learn to find meaning and purpose through our giving and often hold ourselves to the unrealistic expectation of pleasing everyone.
Over time this pattern of trying to please everyone turns into a habit of self-neglect and leads to resentment, feeling unappreciated, and eventually burned out. If you can relate to any of this, you are not alone. I have been a professional nurturer for most of my life and learning the power of self-nurturing has been the key to transforming the overwhelm and exhaustion that came with over giving into a life filled with peace and joy. Learning to create space in my life for flow has been essential in this healing process as it has allowed me to no longer live in crisis management mode.
When we feel responsible for other people’s needs and making everyone happy, our nervous system becomes easily dysregulated. We feel the ongoing stress and anxiety of navigating our packed schedules with little time for rest and relaxation. Living with unrealistic expectations of ourselves drains us and encourages us to work harder to feel like we are good enough. All of this takes a profound toll on our nervous systems and mental health. We can become depressed living with constant stress and anxiety.
One of the important aspects of creating space in our lives is the opportunity to settle our nervous systems and open to flow. When we are overwhelmed with stress while tending to everyone’s needs, most of our experiences feel challenging and difficult. The pressure of time, schedules, responsibilities, and competing priorities feeds our fight/flight/freeze reaction, and we often make reactive decisions rather than responsive choices for our wellbeing. If you have experienced trauma in your life, you are more easily triggered by outside events when your nervous system is activated.
If you are interested in experiencing more flow in your life, I invite you to bring love and compassion to yourself as you nurture your nervous system. Intentionally creating more space in your day will allow you to access the energy of being in the flow. Each act of self-nurturing will remind you of your value and worth and make it easier to prioritize yourself and your needs, transforming your habit of self-neglect into a beautiful practice of self-nurturing.
Here are some self-nurturing practices to create space for flow in your life:
1. Sacred Pause
Cultivating a sacred pause in your day creates space to reflect on how you feel and what you need to empower you to make nurturing choices. This practice is brief and supportive and includes taking an intentional breath, checking in with yourself, asking yourself how you feel and what you need in this moment, and reinforces that you matter to yourself. You can include a sacred pause at the beginning of the day, before important conversations, in the transition between work and family time, and/or at the end of the day. Experiment with when you find taking a sacred pause most supportive or choose to take it whenever you need to come home to yourself and reconnect to what is important to you. Integrate sacred pauses in your day to feel more spacious and open to the flow available in each moment.
2. Bring Mindfulness to Your Daily Routine
Mindfulness simply means paying attention on purpose with curiosity, compassion, and non-judgement. When you bring your full attention to what you are doing, it elevates the quality of the experience and opens you to notice things you would usually overlook. Bringing mindfulness to your daily routine helps you appreciate the tasks in a new way and inspires gratitude and appreciation. Mindfulness creates space in your day, reconnects you to yourself, and opens you to the energy of flow, ease and grace. Being present in your daily routine will rewire your neural pathways, settle your nervous system, and nurture more meaningful experiences in your life.
3. Unscheduled Moments
Be intentional about your schedule. Choose to place time on your calendar that is unscheduled. Create space in your life for flow by not scheduling every moment. Assess when having unscheduled time would benefit you the most and appreciate the spaciousness you have created not having every moment scheduled. Open to the sense of freedom you experience and tune into the energy of flow that unfolds in the creativity of the unscheduled moments.
4. Delight List
Experiencing the energy of delight is the energy of flow. Delight is filled with glimmers and joy that uplift and transform your mood and energy. Begin by noticing what lights you up or delights you. Keep a list to encourage your brain to notice more experiences of delight. Give yourself permission to feel delight throughout your day and honor it by putting it on a list. Share your delight with family and friends by taking a picture of your delight (cup of coffee, bird, sunrise, sunset, beloved child or pet, clouds, art, kind messages, trees, etc.) and text it with a message. Choose delight to create space in your day for flow and notice the positive impact it has on how you view your life.
5. Batch Chores With Fun
When you intentionally add fun to chores, it cultivates flow. If you love podcasts, Ted Talks, music, singing, dancing, talking to your best friend, or playing games, batch these nurturing activities with the chore to improve the experience while opening to flow. Gamify your chores, include an impromptu dance party, and/or find ways to do things you love along with the things that need to get done. Instead of resenting doing laundry, cleaning the dishes, or making dinner, find your flow by choosing to batch chores with fun. You will create space in your day, complete the task with more joy, and possibly finish it more quickly!
6. Celebrate Unexpected Blessings
Flow brings unexpected blessings. Noticing and celebrating your unexpected blessings will reinforce your connection to the energy of flow. Pausing to celebrate reminds you of the importance of flow and blessings in your life and nurtures gratitude and growth.
When we remember that our nurturing choices change the quality of our lives and empower us to create space to live in the energy of flow, we embody that the grass is greener where we water.
May you be inspired to create space in your life for flow as you nurture peace, compassion, and hope in the world from the inside out.
Sending you so much peace, love and gratitude, Kelley
