It’s an oceanic rhythm of noticing…loving…noticing…loving… No matter what I DO over these 40 days, I’m guessing it’s the noticing … loving pattern that’s the real gift.”

Noticing…loving… is an important pattern. One worth nudging into our consciousness, mulling over, integrating into ourselves. Especially if we’re survivors looking to thrive.

Over the past few years I’ve used different words to describe that same rhythm: action —> reflection and presence —> allowing come to mind. But noticing —> loving feels like the most engaged, active version. For now, anyway…

Both pieces are essential, and worth exploring and cultivating. The noticing piece popped up in an interview I recently recorded with Rebecca Thompson of Consciously Parenting (which will be available with lots of other great resources in July.) We talked a little about how noticing takes practice. Loving does, too…

Noticing —> loving —> noticing —> loving is an essential practice because it’s what makes us able to create lasting change; in our lives, in our communities, in our ecosystems.

Its simple, wave-like pulse echos other life-sustaining rhythms.  Our lub-dub heartbeat for example, and our inhale/exhale breath pattern.

And, like our heartbeat and breathing, it’s surface-simple. Underneath it’s womb-deep and eternal. It’s the essential dance of our evolving soul. Be present and notice. —> Be loving and love.

So, here’s my invitation to you…

If it makes your heart sing, start noticing your noticing. What do you notice well? What slips by unnoticed? When you notice something uncomfortable, are you able to stay present with it? Or does it slip out of your notice? Remember, noticing is non-judgmental. You’re simply…noticing. You never know where noticing might take you

And consider sharing what you’re noticing. Here. On your own blog. With loved ones or a trusted community. Because, we’re all in this together!

Meet Tracie Nichols, M.A., I.A.C.

I’m a tree-hugging, earth-loving educator, mentor, and blogger dedicated to helping survivors of violence cultivate resiliency and thrive through developing their own unique, two-way relationship with nature.

There’s a special place in my heart and practice for

• practitioners and business owners who are also survivors of physical/sexual/emotional violence and
• individualist, secretly fierce, tree-hugging, feminist-leaning mid-life women who want to claim their voice and live Fierce!

There are some gifts for you, and some tools you might find helpful. My blog is also full of tools and resources and inspiration

I think they may be life-altering – in the literal sense. I’m still breathing with them…getting to know their texture and rhythm. Bringing myself into harmony with them.

And it’s all because of practicing self-love. This 40 Days Of Self Love adventure is going places I didn’t expect.

Of course it is…

They happened today (day 9) …just a few hours ago…in my bathroom. Though it all started as I was standing in the kitchen wondering what to have for breakfast.

Eating has become a tangled issue for me, sticky with decades of self-loathing and harsh words, choked with a sense of failure and hopelessness. That’s what I drag thumping behind me into the kitchen every morning. That’s the heap I’m trying to peer over as I decide what to eat…for every meal…every day…

But, that isn’t the focus, here. It’s what happened next that was the quietly astonishing, possibly life-altering thing.

I impulsively walked out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. I was thinking about what Kim Larocque did on her first day of self-love. Looking at herself in the mirror and loving herself. I wanted to try that.

So, I looked into my own eyes…deeply. I looked with my heart open. I looked non-judgmentally. I looked at myself the same way I look at other people. Willing to see the sacred. The beautiful. The worth.

And I SAW ALL OF IT!

I saw myself.

Then I said, out loud, “I love you.” I said it again…louder. I wasn’t sure I was really hearing myself, so I said “It’s OK.” and tears welled up. So then I told myself, still aloud, that I trusted myself. I had faith in myself. I believed in myself.

I took a deep breath, gazed deeply into my own eyes and said again, “I love you. It’s OK. You can do this.”  And, felt something shift.

As I left the bathroom a moment later, I burbled my usual “Hello beautiful!” greeting to Elrond the magical cat – and had another moment. I realized that I call everyone else “Gorgeous!” and “Beautiful!” but not myself. Bet you know what happened next

Yep. Back into the bathroom. I looked myself in the eyes, gave myself the same warm smile I give everyone else and chirruped “Hi beautiful!” to me. I’ve been smiling ever since.

My trip back into the kitchen was vastly different. No thumping, sticky mound of ancient loathing. Just me, my gorgeous self, and I./

I’m thinking this practice may become as important as breathing…

So, how’s your 40 Days Of Self Love adventure going?

Meet Tracie Nichols, M.A., I.A.C.

I’m a tree-hugging, earth-loving educator, mentor, and blogger dedicated to helping survivors of violence cultivate resiliency and thrive through developing their own unique, two-way relationship with nature.

There’s a special place in my heart and practice for

• practitioners and business owners who are also survivors of physical/sexual/emotional violence and
• individualist, secretly fierce, tree-hugging, feminist-leaning mid-life women who want to claim their voice and live Fierce!

There are some gifts for you, and some tools you might find helpful. My blog is also full of tools and resources and inspiration

“Set aside your dogma, your pragmatic natures, and don light fairy wings.

“Suspend your doubting nature, your need to know, your need to be right.

“Follow us, learn to live in the mystery of what is, the mystery of what is not.

“Use your antenna to feel your way, your light to show others the way.

“It all begins with fairy wings. You must don light fairy wings.”

About Guest Author Janet Roper:

Janet Roper is host of the popular international radio show “Talk2theAnimalsRadio” and is an animal advocate, communicator, speaker and author based in Belle Plaine MN.  Avid about social media, you will find Janet on Twitter, FaceBook, Pinterest and LinkedIn.  She is cheerfully owned and managed by 3 cats, 2 dogs and 1 horse. Visit her website Talk2theAnimals.net to learn more.

Today my friend and Zentangle goddess Kim Larocque is sharing her lovely thoughts and words with us. Enjoy! Oh, and Kim will be sharing her beautiful images and words the second Friday of every month. Woo-hoo!

Peas in A Pod

I started this doodle about 2 weeks ago learning new and fun Zentangle techniques. Zentangle, for those who are not familiar,is an easy-to-learn, and relaxing way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. I tend to go “off structure” with my doodles, as I am discovering my style, and how I love to play with lines and swirls..

Especially the swirls… they make me happy.

Nature inspires me… As I inspect nature’s details more and more over the past couple of years, I am amazed by its existence and openness to receive the elements it needs to thrive. Water, sunshine, earth and minerals combine to nourish each plant, leaf and tree. No worries for the tree, it accepts the universe’s offerings. The butterfly knows where to find nectar, and the spider strategically weaves its web knowing eventually, it will get its prey.
All this time, the flower, the bee, the tree, the peas and the vines are working hand in hand.

Like peas on a pod.

If I could live like nature, with nature, would I have to worry anymore? Could I depend on the other peas in the pod to keep me company? Will I grow just by allowing the sunlight to kiss my branches? I think so. Our human experience is often differentiated by what is around us: The people, the noise, the judgements.

A flower doesn’t care if it is missing a petal. It still blossoms with dignity. The tree’s knots do not worry , and eventually the knots can become holes and respite for a squirrel.

Everything, in fact, in nature has a purpose.

So as I emulate nature, and begin to allow myself to reach out like the vines tendrils to like-minded souls, thus appreciating the support, the love and the comfort. I am slowly finding my purpose and accepting where I am at this moment in time. It is where I am supposed to be.

In the end, I find myself in good company. Ready to grow like the flower, and stand rooted like the tree. I am one with all things.

Nature is my muse…

Meet Kim Larocque!

Do you ever have really weird dreams? (Don’t we all?) Dreams that repeat a little too often for comfort? Dreams that make no sense whatsoever? Kim can help!

Kim Larocque is a fabulous dream interpreter and the mind and spirit of  Muse In The Valley; a blog dedicated to assist in interpreting dreams, and promoting self-awareness. She writes about various subjects including mental-heath issues, self-love/self-care and spirituality and of course, dreams.

Kim also writes book reviews, and interviews Authors from all over the world. It is a treat for her to ask authors curious yet amusing questions, while also keeping the focus on their books and poetry. She loves photography, and art.

Prior to writing, dream-work, and Literary Blogging, Kim spent the past 15 years teaching elementary school and raising her children at home.

You can contact Kim via Twitter: @kim_larocque, on Facebook: Muse In The Valley and her website www.museinthevalley.com.

Kim lives in Deux-Montagnes Quebec, with her 2 teen FrootLoops and her dog Gibson.

Self-love day 4…Tenderly cradled my belly and murmured.“I love and appreciate you so much.” to my gorgeous digestive tract. Damn fine, hard-working, under-appreciated body parts.

…and realized that I wanted to do it again today. Love on my gorgeous digestive tract – not share on social media, I mean.

I wasn’t so much loving my belly, the outer covering, I was loving the unseen, hard-working bits.

It’s sort-of like loving my soul, knowing my radiance comes from within. Only here I’m loving my gut, knowing my well being comes from within. That comparison may be working better in my head…but I think you know what I mean.

Most of my life I’ve been pretty cavalier with my working parts. My body was just…there. At best an annoyance. At worst a squishy, pink, wobbly-thighed, albatross. It would heal, repair, adapt no matter what I threw at it.

In the past few years I’ve been seeing myself differently, though. Appreciating my stretch marks, growing fond of my feet, letting my silvering hair grow long and wild-womanish.

Until yesterday, though, that appreciation was limited to my surface. What I could see when I looked in the mirror. That all changed when I placed my hands lovingly on my surface, letting their heat and energy radiate into my center.

You can’t cradle your pancreas lovingly, consciously, and not be changed by the experience.

So that’s my self-loving practice for today, too. Placing my hands on my surface, picturing my depths, loving myself, appreciating my unseen and oh-so-essential inner workings.

It makes me feel all warm and glow-y inside…

How is your 40 Days of Self-Love going?

Meet Tracie Nichols, M.A., I.A.C.

I’m a tree-hugging, earth-loving educator and mentor dedicated to helping survivors move from surviving to thriving through developing their own unique relationship with nature.

There’s a special place in my heart and practice for

• practitioners and business owners who are also survivors of physical/sexual/emotinoal violence and
• individualist, secretly fierce, tree-hugging, feminist-leaning mid-life women who want to claim their voice and live Fierce!

There are some gifts for you, and some tools you might find helpful. My blog is also full of tools and resources and inspiration

That’s not me being all dramatic. It’s a simple statement of fact.

Without the gloriously engaged, wonderfully supportive community forming around this 40 Days of Self-Love idea, I would not be able to stand so naked in front of myself.

The truly amazing, warm-hearted Janet Roper reminded me of this in her comment on Day 2. She said, “I’m glad I’m doing this with such a magnificent group of women .”

The oh-so-wise Susie Beiler (that we’re doing this is all her fault, you know) is the one who made “share with others” a condition of the challenge.

Because…we’re all in this together.

The glorious sea of comments springing up under posts illustrates this. The community building in the Facebook group illustrates this. Blogs by Kim Larocque and Mohini Basu illustrate this…

Our own hearts illustrate this.

We’re all in this together. None of us are alone.

That’s my self-loving for today. Being in this together – so very consciously – with all of you.

Meet Tracie Nichols, M.A., I.A.C.

I’m a tree-hugging, earth-loving educator and mentor dedicated to helping survivors move from surviving to thriving through developing their own unique relationship with nature.

There’s a special place in my heart and practice for

• practitioners and business owners who are also survivors of physical/sexual/emotinoal violence and
• individualist, secretly fierce, tree-hugging, feminist-leaning mid-life women who want to claim their voice and live Fierce!

There are some gifts for you, and some tools you might find helpful. My blog is also full of tools and resources and inspiration

I’ve learned that being adversarial isn’t helpful when dealing with those voices. Befriending them is so much more productive. And, so much more LOVING.

So, I had tea and a deeply honest conversation with this particular critical voice. Turns out….she’s an aspect of my practical, structure-loving self. 

Rigid structure and the feeling of being controlled by those structures (or the people creating them) triggers me. Badly. And, so, I’d turned her into an enemy.

Which brings me to my act of self-love for today. Become friends with this part of myself. More tea and conversation so I can learn about this part of me — cultivate respect and appreciation.

Because pleasure and practicality can co-exist, can serve each other and the balance of the whole. And, that’s essential to a healthy relationship with something as practical as food.

What about you? How is your 40 Days of Self-Love going?

Meet Tracie Nichols, M.A., I.A.C.

I’m a tree-hugging, earth-loving educator and mentor dedicated to helping survivors move from surviving to thriving through developing their own unique relationship with nature.

There’s a special place in my heart and practice for

• practitioners and business owners who are also survivors of physical/sexual/emotinoal violence and
• individualist, secretly fierce, tree-hugging, feminist-leaning mid-life women who want to claim their voice and live Fierce!

There are some gifts for you, and some tools you might find helpful. My blog is also full of tools and resources and inspiration

Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve had a series of ideas spinning across my mind’s eye like a disjointed movie all morning. I just can’t pick one. Because I don’t know which is most loving. Because I don’t know if I know what loving myself really feels like.

Am I totally over-thinking this?

Probably.

(…quite a bit of time passed here, while I walked determinedly outside, plunked my feet into the grass, took some deep breaths, crawled out of my head and into my heart, got radically present…)

I stood with my feet nestled into the rain-wet grass, head back, arms open, drenched in moist breezes and muted sunlight. Felt my body relax. Felt myself smile softly. Deliciously, wondrously pleasured by how my aliveness danced with the aliveness of my beloved ecosystem. “Ahhh….,” I thought, “This is self-love.”

The more deeply I rested into the pleasure, the louder I heard a discontented muttering in my mind. A dirty, grey-brown grumbling insinuating itself between pleasure and I.

And, I realized I can’t feel sensual pleasure, like my bare feet in the wet grass, without this critical voice tarnishing the experience. This is at least one reason why I find it so hard to be self-loving when it involves my body.

So, my first act of self-love will be to have tea and loving conversation with this grey-brown grumbling voice. I’ll compassionately listen to it’s story, because it’s my story, too. Then, we’ll re-write our story together so we can bask in the sun without a grumbling counterpoint to the pleasure.

I’ll let you know how the conversation goes tomorrow…

How is your 40 Days of Self-Love going?

“As I fly above you, many things come to my attention.

“I see the separation and the division you have created in our natural world. You have tried to claim the world for yourselves only.

“I see the areas that have become segmented, and because of that are not able to grow and provide the Nature and the nurturing they once could.

“Where it is natural to have unification, I see splits amongst you humans and on the land on which you live.

“My children,

“Do you not realize that the divisions you have created are far, far reaching?

“I see you create these divisions, trying to claim your own safety and assurance. But it has the opposite effect.

“My children,

“I ask that you take a good look at the world you have created, then answer this question: Does the separation you have created really give you the security you are so desperately seeking, or do you find you must create even more separation in order to feel safe and secure?

“My children,

“It is time that you look at the world you have created, not through your eyes, but through my eyes.”

About Guest Author Janet Roper:

Janet Roper is host of the popular international radio show “Talk2theAnimalsRadio” and is an animal advocate, communicator, speaker and author based in Belle Plaine MN.  Avid about social media, you will find Janet on Twitter, FaceBook, Pinterest and LinkedIn.  She is cheerfully owned and managed by 3 cats, 2 dogs and 1 horse. Visit her website Talk2theAnimals.net to learn more.

She called it a challenge. Hmmmm…..

Since November she’s been helping me to gently and lovingly explore my intractable, impossible, monumentally complicated by being a survivor relationship with food.

Did I mention complicated?

And, she’s been helping — A LOT! So, when I babbled a suggestion that we both knew walked the knife edge between sparking exponential growth and provoking self sabotage, she brilliantly offered her challenge. 4o days of self-love…

Susie also wanted me to talk about all this self-love while I did it. Well, as soon as she said 4o days of self-love I’d already gone there. Good to know we were, as usual, on the same wavelength!

And, so, here it is… My inaugural post. I’m officially starting on Saturday, June 8 at 11:56 a.m. with the new moon. (EST or GMT-4)

What do I mean by self-love?

Anything that makes me feel loved. Big stuff. Little stuff. Silly stuff. Beautiful stuff. Serious stuff. One act. Every day.

Basically…

1 act of self-love + 1 day + 1 blog post = challenge met.

The only thing that could make this more luscious is to have YOU join me. Start when you want. Define self-love however you want. Comment on my post. Blog about it yourself. Spread the word on social media. Whatever makes your heart dance and sing!

So. What to you think? 4o days of self-love?