It's February: Be Your Own Valentine with Embodied Self-Love

Our monthly focus for Valentine's month is "Embodied Self-Love".

The phrase “Love yourself” is used so often that the words started to lose their meaning. I knew that feeling love for myself makes me feel happy, and I also understood that self-love is a key to better relationships.  Although a cliché by now, it's true that “In order to be loved by others, or truly love another, you have to love yourself first”.

I knew that self-love was important yet it was becoming another task on the do-list. More "work"!   I've been learning ways that really work and make self-love more joyful, which I'm happy to share with you.
 
 I practice self-love through kind and compassionate self-talk.  Monitoring my thoughts and being more careful with the words I “speak” to myself, is an empowering new habit. These days—most of the time, even when I “slip” into speaking poorly of myself, or beating myself up, I see it faster and forgive rather than judge myself for that.

 Awareness Practice: To deepen your awareness of your self-talk-imagine the voice of your ‘inner roommate’ as if you could hear it externally, like the sound of another person’s voice.  Write down the words you hear and then ask yourself: “Is this really true? Is it kind, is it necessary? Is this what I need to hear right now?  What is this inner critical voice trying to do for me (usually it’s trying to keep you safe) and is this the best way to do that? What would be a more supportive way to talk to myself?” 

Take this a step further, beyond mental awareness, into the body.   I’ve been doing that this past year, and I feel the difference on a cellular, tangible level.  My love for my whole being, my desire and joy in taking loving care of my health, my body and my boundaries, is stronger and deeper. After my initial resistance, I know enjoy this and look forward to it.

This practice took root in me after a workshop with my wonderful qigong and Daoist teacher, Daniel Villasenor, who said, “You can grow self-love simply by self-cultivation (mindful touch).”  Curious to see-- could it be that simple to cultivate self-love like a seed, with touch?--I began.  Gradaully I’ve grown to love it and treasure the gifts I receive from it—vitality, pleasure, and self-love.  Try it, you’ll like it!   

Embodied Self-Love Practice--simple, yet profound.  What is this? The embodied self-love practice is about touching yourself regularly with love and kindness. Through doing this, it becomes natural to appreciate your body more, and feel more sensual, sensitive and fully alive.

Daily, or a few times a week, touch your body like a caring friend or lover, using organic coconut or grapeseed oil.  Depending on the time you’ve set aside, you can massage the whole body, just the face, or whichever places that want your touch the most, and don’t be shy to include your intimate areas.

Make it a ritual, use soft music or candles if you like.  It doesn’t need to take long, most days it’s about 10 minutes for me, though sometimes I treat myself to a longer ‘session’. You can do this any time of day, though some people find it too stimulating at night.  (I can share more with you about this practice privately or in a small group call, so contact me with your questions)

How does this work? The body is literal—it translates being touched with love to “I am loved.  My body is lovable, my life matters.”  We learn this in infancy—only infants that get touched will thrive and touch tells the infant it is loved.   (This concept is the basis, in fact, of the “Self-Acceptance Repatterning”.  I'm very happy to offer you this session or whichever repatterning you need to increase your self-love and acceptance.) 

Touch feeds your parasympathetic nervous system, which in turn helps you relax, and feel more connected to yourself and to others.  It will help you digest and sleep better, and feel more peaceful.

From a Daoist point of view, self-touch, especially around our intimate areas, enlivens and reconnects us to our jing, the core creative and procreative energy that gave us the spark of life.
From concept to embodied reality, this practice generates an internal feeling of goodness, acceptance and pleasure--that which I always longed for a partner to provide. Embodied self-love can be your key too, to being more fulfilled and free from any dependence on a partner or friends for approval and attention.      

If you desire a new partner or a richer relationship with your current partner, embodied self-love will help you come to your relationship full, rather than from lack or neediness.  It will benefit you even if you are not in partnership or not wanting one, by freeing you to experience more love, pleasure and satisfaction.

It’s a great way to finally end that vain effort to fill a hollow place in yourself with water from another’s well, to liberate yourself from needing food, substances, entertainment, money, achievement or material goods to feel satisfied.  Now THAT is abundance and true flourishing!    

Experiment, let me know how it goes. I’m here for encouragement and guidance if you need it.  Let the joy, pleasure and self-love begin.
Here's to loving and celebrating your glorious Self, 
Ellen .

Breakfast with God

I just received this fascinating email from Maureen Moss, creator of the World Puja online community.

Enjoy the reading..and I like this idea of picking three high vibration words to describe ourselves, representing qualities that we would "wear" if we were going to have brunch with our creator.

what would you pick? mine are Loving/Focused/Compassionate.

Many blessings,
Ellen

Here's her article:

"This year I began a year long class on "Mastering Alchemy." Included in this class is a strong emphasis on "Living Words." Given a list of more than 100 words and traits that carry a very high vibration, we are asked to choose and live three of the words and traits daily. It's a very powerful practice. Anyway...

Nearing the end of last week's class we were asked to choose and embody three words (without thinking) that we would "wear" if we were going to lunch with the Creator. I chose the words powerful, gracious and kind. (No thought.)

I went to sleep having the image in mind and heart of God, and me together, at lunch. Upon awakening, I entered my morning meditation (with journal and pen next to me,) and guess who joined me? God.

I felt the presence that I have come to know as God, 'come over me' before the words were telepathically impressed upon my consciousness. "Would you like to have breakfast with Me?" I simply smiled from the inside out and said, "I would love to." I noticed, very quickly, that I was still embodying the living words powerful, gracious and kind. Upon consciously noticing my state of being, a burst of Love palpably moved through my heart. I had the sensation that God was mirroring me, by being powerful, gracious and kind, to me.

I spoke my feelings about that out loud and here, in part, is what I received about each of you and the year ahead.

"You have just experienced, 'there is only One of us.' I have long told you that you will only teach that which you experience. You yourself needed this reminder, so you could remind the many. Who you are, is who I Am. How you Be is how I Be. How you love Me is how I love you. We are One.

Now you have a deeper awareness of why I ask all of you to create time for Me daily and come to me open-hearted and filled with love. Only through love and intentional contact can you access Me, hear Me, feel Me, know Me, collaborate with Me and make your way gracefully through your life; particularly through this next year.

Humanity is well within the energy field of 2012. Make no mistake about it, and do not take this lightly. What has been written thus far about 2012 has engaged many minds, now you must engage your hearts, so you will not miss what you have incarnated for, which includes meeting many Beings of Higher Consciousness that you have had a 'through the veils' experience with.

The timeline of the third dimension has collapsed, more quickly than anticipated. Your Beloved Mother Earth is in a most fragile state and has chosen to birth her ascended state now. She is doing so in great part to move herself up to her next level of consciousness, as she is dying in the former one, and in great part to push each of you into your next level of consciousness, for you too are dying in your former one.

The year ahead will be the most fascinating of any that you have had in your human experience, Beloveds. From meeting your space brothers and sisters, Archangels and Angels, to the many moments of alchemy and magic, apparent tragedy and transcendence, each of you will live the year in front of you being beckoned moment by moment to choose love or to choose fear, purposefully.

Your state of consciousness is being put to every test now, and for good reason. What you choose in each moment will determine where you will live in the new order outside of time. Whatever you choose is where you will be, and where you will be will mirror that which you choose.

The new earth is mandated to be duality and polarity free. The same is true for each of you in order that you ascend. You have been told before, via the one that writes this, that you are positioned to become heroes in a transition stage. Only through love stabilized, and consistency and communion with Me, are you able to hold the frequency of the new Earth and the fifth dimension without falling back into another deep sleep of separation.

You are each surrounded by vast Legions of Light Beings of the highest order that are positioned to help you as well. Each ask that you strengthen your rapport with them, ask for what you need, participate in your ascension and claim your victory.

It is also true that energies of a Dark nature still linger, attempting to win your affection. Circumstances are ripe for them to enter your lives each time you choose fear over love, regardless of any experience you are in the midst of. Come and sit with Me and I will tell you the Truth about any of your experiences, if you will listen with an open mind.

You will be well served if your stories that you continue to claim as the reason for your despair and malfunction have Light cast upon them, rather than the mortal mind's repetitive shadows. In the Light you will see Truth. In the Light and Love of Truth, along with your devotion to your shift, you are made capable of transmuting patterns of fear, patterns of repetition, change genetic coding, alter your DNA, and shift your entire ancestral lineage.

"How am I to do that," you might ask, "when I am jobless, uncertain, and my abundance is dwindling?" You choose to stop believing that you are jobless or without abundance and you will stand in the middle of your own transformation.

Be of good service to others, and you will have a job. Give and you will receive. That is the Law and the Promise. You have no need for the details. It is already written. Trust Me, or trust your mind. You choose.

Humanity has had a perception challenge for millennia. Stop perceiving anything. Let the former notions and perceptions seep out of you until you are empty. Empty. And when you are empty, I will fill you up with the nectar of a God, not a human playing small, but a God playing Big. You choose. Yes I know this is a big stretch for many. So be it. Stretch and empty yourselves, and see what you find. You have nothing to lose but a state of mind that has killed off many a Truth.

Choose love and love is what you will get. Take your mind out of everything it has formerly invaded.

Where you take notice of a conflicted nature, sit down and breathe. Connect to The Great Central Sun and the crystalline grid of Mother Earth, with your breath. Learn how to run stabilized energy through your bodies as easily as you put food into your mouth. Get into your body and compose yourself. Come to Me and I will lead you back to yourself and prepare you to enter a Higher Order outside of time.

I have told you this before and I tell it to you again. You are Gods in human form. You are loved beyond your deepest imaginings. You are My heart beating, and I love you.

Believe Me and come forth."

Copyright Maureen Moss 2010. Please feel comfortable to share this with others. I ask that you include my name and websites as this is part of a greater body of work.
http://www.worldpuja.org
http://www.maureenmoss.com