Part two of this series is going to be all about wellness.
“Women usually never reach out, so we must reach in.”
I now want to take this thought and turn it back on ourselves. As women, or men for that matter, how often do we check in with ourselves?
This got me thinking about infants and how reaching in is such a part of those early years and daily practices. We have to reach into their cribs. They reach for us to pick them up. The little toddlers love to reach for this and that, and sometimes it’s not a safe thing they may be reaching for. Parenting is a such a wild ride, but as I read the Bible, I see how the Father is parenting His people over and over again. I truly believe our heavenly Father is here to help guide us and give us wisdom on what is worth reaching for and what might be harmful to our core.
Let’s take this thought even deeper.
I don’t know how much you have heard the phrases self-compassion, self-healing, or doing inner child work. Let me give you some examples. Some of us did not receive much grace or compassion from our parental figures, and as adults that makes us very self-reliant, pretty guarded, and hard of trusting people. Why? Because we’ve had to figure things out on our own usually. We were not given the permission to make mistakes or to check in with ourselves to figure out why we did what we did. We get told certain things about why we did what we did, but our behavior never changed, for we never got to the root of our actions in the first place by checking in with our own hearts.
This is what I mean by reaching in. We as disciples of Jesus need to put our hands on ourselves and find the broken pieces within, and allow the Holy Spirit to purify and realign those pieces again and again. Our hearts need maintenance, just like our cars. Routine maintenance allows the car to run longer and more smoothly, and the same is true with our hearts.
This type of heart work can hurt, for you must feel the disappointments, grief, guilt, anger, regret, self-hatred, and any other negative emotions to work through the healing cycle and complete the work within. Our body holds muscle memory, and the traumas of our past are hiding inside our tissues. I have heard it said, “our issues are in our tissues.”
I am dealing with this personally, for the traumas I’ve walked through have finally started effecting my nervous system. I’ve had to really learn what kind of self-care and healing modalities will repair my body. I am getting there, and I’ve learned that wellness is so much a part of this earthly journey we are walking through. We can’t just heal the heart. We have to heal all of our parts: mind, body, spirit and soul.
When we can carry grace for ourselves, and not feel this push to perform or produce, we can ask our bodies what it can handle today and act accordingly. This is called intentional living. We are intentional in what we are consuming in our diet, through our eyes, and ultimately allowing into our hearts.
As children, we rely on our parents to guard and govern this, and for some of us they did not protect us enough. I am sorry for that, I truly am. Loss of innocence is something that breaks my heart deeply. But no matter how we got to where we are, the Father is here to hand us an exchange. This is what I’ve found over and over again. Even in hard moments, we can ask the Father what He has in exchange, and to also show us where He was in that moment. A lot of times we felt alone, and that loneliness starts to deposit inside of us an orphan spirit and even a poverty mentality. We will go into this further next week as we are talk about mindset.
In summary, when you feel like you have lost your grin, take a pause and reach in.
Until next time,
Keep Believing
Keep Braving
Keep Beaming