I've been pondering over this post for almost a week. Rather than spewing weekly blogs out, I'm waiting until I have something constructive to say. Well I've been struggling with the seemingly never ending pandemic and all that entails. I'm back to teaching in person, but I'm not yet eligible for a booster so I've been stressed. I've also struggled with self worth, and valuing my own work.
Dark times can magnify wounds in ourselves that we haven't healed or addressed. The pandemic has shone a spotlight on mine with most of my distractions being unavailable. (Yes I avoid and spiritual bypass with the best of them). Specifically I've been feeling the wounds around being worthy. Given this time between time I still find myself dwelling in, I have decided to do my best to practice some self care.
I use my mesa for prayer ceremonies for my community and Patreon supporters, and I also use it for session work with clients. I often forget that I can use it for working on myself. Like many people I forget that I can give to myself. It isn't any more difficult than doing it for others. The difficulty is the mental block of setting aside time for myself, where a lot of subconscious programming sees it as somehow selfish or unproductive (yay more internalized capitalism...grrr). I mustered through those internal voices of dissent and did the thing anyways.
What you see in the picture above is not the work I did for myself. The picture was the weekly prayer ceremony, minus the stones and inner cloth of the mesa. It was doing work for me and wasn't finished in time for the Friday ceremony. So I improvised using just the outer cloth and some things from the office, whilst my inner cloth and stones were cooking on the issue back at home. It was kind of a big deal to put myself first and not dismantle the self care I had going on to do my service work the way I always did it. I still showed up, still sent Spirit gratitude, set up an altar, shook my rattle, and said prayers for my community. What I didn't do was sabotage my own work by rushing it and demanding I show up in exact the same way. I'd like to make self care and healing work more of a habit where I give myself the same level of consideration that I give to my clients when we're in session.
Why am I telling you this? Well how many times have you damaged yourself just so you can show up in the exact same way for everyone else around you? How many times have you made yourself sick just because you don't feel like you can slow down, rest, and recuperate? How many times have you said yes to another obligation, even though you were past the point of exhaustion? I'm not saying to throw out all your responsibilities, but what I am saying is that perhaps don't add anything more to them when you haven't taken care of your responsibility for your own needs.
As we in the Northern Hemisphere Head further into the dark and cold months it is important that we rest more. It is important that we value our own being enough to give ourselves what we need, despite all the cultural programming we are bombarded with. We cannot show up for others if we never show up for ourselves, so my darlings take care of yourselves.
Peace & Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle
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