I’ve been sick the past few days and it has helped put things in perspective. Even when I am sick or struggling with the symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and anxiety, I am always blooming. Even when I feel like I am taking several steps back, I am always blooming.
It’s so easy to get down on myself, to forget the wonderful person I am, the good I do for myself and others each day, and the multitude of healthy choices I make. It’s easy to focus on what isn’t going well, when there is so much beauty and goodness in my life, much of which I have chosen, cultivated and nourished. I wonder….does a flower ever say, “damn it, I should have bloomed fully by now. I’m not sure why I’m lagging behind?” Or do it just revel in joy that it is always blooming and growing, even through the stages that may appear to be less beautiful? I wonder….
Wherever you are at in your life, may you know how glorious you are through every struggle, every heartache, every moment of despair. May you know that you are constantly blooming, even if the soil of your heart’s garden doesn’t seem very fertile, or if the sun doesn’t seem to be shining on you.
Every moment you live, may you be inspired to make the healthiest and wisest choices possible and may you connect with the true beauty you are. May you see yourself as always blooming, even when everything around you is changing with the seasons of life. I see you and I honor you. I am cheering you on and smiling at you.
I have been scared and intimidated by anger in the past. I have also been wanting to get to know my anger and to create more space for it within me.
I have chronic fatigue syndrome. Over the last several years, I have hated myself for it, resented, blamed and berated myself and my body for it. I have also lost myself in efforts to “get rid of it” so I could get back to my life without it. I have tried many ways to heal, those that honored me and my precious body and those that were just a means to an end.
This past week I thought to myself that I would just stop. Just stop trying to get better, to overcome this and just be me regardless of whether I like having chronic fatigue or not. It felt very nice, like I could finally relax and just be. Ironically then, yesterday I met two people who offered me suggestions of other options or paths I could take. At first it felt nice to have more hope but a few hours later I felt angry. I felt it traveling up the right side of my body, burning. I felt it and I knew.
This is my power. This anger is me saying enough, reminding me that I am the one with the power to make my own decisions, the only one who can choose to stop trying and just be. The one who can appreciate that there may be other avenues to explore but who needs a rest from exploring. As I type this, I feel incredibly empowered and accepting of myself. I don’t feel like I am giving up on myself. If anything, my anger has led me to a deeper sense of home, acceptance and belonging within me.
It’s 3:54am and I felt so moved by my anger that I needed to type this out. I had just woken up 25 minutes ago to use the washroom and I felt so full of thoughts that I decided to breathe and allow my breath to empty me out so I could go back to sleep. I felt dizzy with how overflowing I was with thoughts but then I remembered the beautiful anger I had felt while brushing my teeth before bed and I reclaimed my power again and starting typing. Now I feel like I am my own super hero with a calm mind and heart. I am here, loving and honoring myself and my need “to be” instead of “pursue”.
Will I ever try other ways to heal my chronic fatigue? Absolutely. When will I start that exploration? When the time feels right.
Thank you my beautiful mind, body and heart for all you do. And thank you anger for teaching me to honor my needs and boundaries and for guiding me to my inner peace and power. No matter where you are in your life and what you are dealing with, may you be blessed with so much inner power, strength, inspiration and peace.
In this self-care, self-love journey, I have noticed that there are times when I am going to war with myself. It was an important but sad realization. How many of us have improved our relationships with ourselves, friends and family and the world, but are still fighting on the inside?
My hope is that with this new self-awareness of this tendency that I will move towards healthier and honorable ways of relating to myself and dealing with my big emotions. Here are some ways that I noticed I was going to war with myself:
A few weeks ago, I got very angry over something that happened and I caught myself picking at my finger and causing a lot of pain. I have done that since my teens, but that day I was able to see how I was taking the anger I was feeling and throwing it painfully right back at myself.
When I am emotionally tired or upset or overwhelmed, I tend to eat to comfort myself. This realization has been a long time coming. Recently while I was eating to get comfort, I realized how unhealthy that was. It felt like my emotions were saying, “Hey Bradlee, things are really out of balance and we need you,” and I was responding in a way that didn’t acknowledge those feelings but kept them down through food.
These may not seem like much of a war or a battle to someone outside of me, but I’m the one who has been living with this battle for 30+ years. It’s been a long, drawn out fight to stay above the surface of my humanity and I’ve done that by fighting myself, my body and my emotions. I love the image at the top of this post. No amount of armor can truly stop me from being human and having a whole range of feelings and experiences. No matter what, here I am, wide open, and learning how to get a PhD in Being Me. I think that means learning to put down my shield, take off my visor and remove the chest plate and learn how to soothe myself to bring an end to my inner war.
This song has inspired me countless times; I heard it again this morning and decided to use its opening line as the title for this post. If you’re inspired, you can check it out, it’s by Trevor Hall and it’s called, “Put Down What You Are Carrying” : https://youtu.be/qvMzebnP170
Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing what I learn over the next few weeks as I end the inner war and anchor greater light, love and respect for myself, for my family and for all.
In December, I learned about The Mourner’s Bill of Rights, by Dr. Alan Wolfelt. It is a very heartfelt list of “rights” for grieving people so that they may fully process and experience their grief.
I felt so supported while hearing those rights that it inspired me to create my own Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights. The whole point of this site is to empower others to become experts in being their awesome selves and this felt like a beautiful tool of empowerment.
To start off, I asked my heart what kinds of “rights” I could give to myself to make it really clear that I had the right to give myself self-love and self-care. I came up with a long list and it felt so wonderful. Like I could give myself permission to show myself how much I matter through any of those actions.
I have created an infographic of my top 12 favorite rights and below there is a text version for greater accessibility. You can download the infographic or copy and paste the text version of some example rights. I’ve also added additional ones to inspire you to create your own Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights. Please know that you can make up any that make you happy, my list is only meant as a guide to empower you to put yourself first!
Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights: infographic version
Self-Love and Self-Care Bill of Rights: text version
What follows is a copy and paste version of a long list of rights that you can “give” yourself with regards to self-love and self-care. Most are from my heart, and the last nine are from participants from a presentation I did on this topic at work! Thank you to all those lovely participants who shared and inspired me too!
I have the right to:
make healthy choices
know my tremendous worth
love and care for myself
rest instead of always doing
stop what I am doing to check in with myself
compliment myself and say the things to my heart that I would love others to say to me
be honest with myself
breathe deeply a few times before moving on to the next task
prioritize self-care over everything else
be gentle with myself
experiment with self-love and self-care practices to find what works best for me
adapt, grow, regress, progress, get in a slump, feel bad, be joyful and everything in between
treat myself with kindness and compassion
rest even when everyone else is busy
follow my intuition even if other people tell me to do something different
not be okay or to be more than okay
give myself more love, not less* (from Matt Kahn’s teachings www.mattkahn.org)
give myself permission to live my life from the inside out
praise myself for the good things I do each day, even the small ones
look at myself in the mirror and smile
enjoy my own company or to learn how to
feel exactly as I am feeling without needing to rush or hurry those feelings away
do things my own way
love and be loved
set boundaries
be myself
say no to uncomfortable situations
work at my own pace
just feel what I’m feeling
do and enjoy whatever I love even if others don’t love that!
stop doing what I am doing and take a break to process things
Thanks so much for reading until the end of this long post! I would love to hear what your favorite rights are. If you feel like sharing, please leave me a comment below. Please feel free to share the infographic, the bulleted list or any list you make with others to inspire them to care for their awesome selves.
A gorgeous sunset in Kemptville that reminded me of the glory and strength within the hearts of all
From 2015 to 2018, I was so deeply inspired by the massive spiritual and personal growth I was going through. I would often just be making a meal, sitting, or working and then I would be filled with some words that I just had to type out very quickly. As I understand it now, the divide between my inner wisdom and my awareness was getting smaller and I was being guided from within through these poems.
I remember the day I wrote Ambassadors the poem below. I was on my lunch break and I was going to start making myself some food. I was drawn to a notebook and I wrote out this poem and then just kept going on with my day. Later on when I typed it out, I realized how beautiful, deep and profound it was. If you have been going through any type of spiritual growth or awakening, may this bring you some comfort and guidance. Alternatively, if you have been working on finding yourself and living your true life, then may it also help you find what makes you feel your best.
For as long as I can remember, I haven’t taken responsibility for how I feel. I have blamed or resented other people, thinking it was their fault I was mad, sad, disempowered, or overwhelmed.
I have related to life as a victim for a very long time. I even remember writing in my diary in grade 6 and thinking to myself, “Ah, look at that, this is the role I will be playing in my life.” It was like my inner wisdom was observing me taking on the persona of victimhood.
I have had a lifetime of Oscar worthy performances as a victim, with many breakthroughs over the years where I live from a more empowered and confident place. Thankfully, through my efforts to get to know, love, and care for myself, I am seeing the role of “victim” for what it is, a role.
Maybe as I get closer to getting a PhD in Being Me, I am also becoming my own casting director in the play of my life. Maybe I am also the executive producer, star performer, prompter, props person, and even playwright. Maybe that’s why I recently had the thought: How I feel is nobody’s fault.
I first had that thought while I was walking the dogs in mid-January. It was like I stepped outside of myself and looked at my life from a place of emotional freedom, and those words, “How I feel is nobody’s fault,” trickled into my being and unshackled me. This was very profound for me because of my pattern of blaming and resenting others instead of taking responsibility for myself.
For example, with chronic fatigue syndrome, I have limited energy each day. Sometimes, when I was especially tired, I would resent my chores, my job, my body, my family, or my dogs. It has been hard for me to remember deep in my being that it is no one’s fault I am so tired or that I choose to resent or blame instead of just being tired. The truth is, I have been resenting and blaming for a long time, way before I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue. That realization of “how I feel is nobody’s fault” has shifted my perspective to one where I can take responsibility for how I feel, which frees me from blame, resentment, and perpetual victimhood.
For two days after those words, “How I feel is nobody’s fault,” I kept repeating that realization to myself and feeling the freedom within it. I was more liberated in terms of how I related to others and the responsibilities in my life. It was heavenly. I then was thrust back into feeling like a victim until that freedom and sense of peace and self autonomy came back to me.
I expect that I will cycle through this realization as it deepens and loosens up those rigid, disempowered aspects of my being until I am more free, autonomous, and accountable to and responsible for myself. May the loosening and softening be as loving, gentle, and respectful as possible for me, for you dear reader, and for all. No force or pressure, just beautiful dawning and expanding of autonomy in all aspects of our individual and collective beingness.
A NOTE: This realization stems from me relating to life as a victim. This realization is from my inner work and isn’t meant to tell anyone who is being abused or hurt by another in any way that it is not their abusers fault. Abuse of any kind is not okay, and it is wrong. If you are in an abusive situation, I love you, and it is not your fault. I encourage you to reach out to loved ones or professional support where you live, and may you receive all the love, support, and care you need.
Thank you for reading. Wherever you are in your life or how you are feeling, I support you!
I wrote this poem in 2017. It was when I knew that I could be kinder to myself and I was experimenting with how to do so. I remember just feeling so constrained and wondering what I was trying to measure up to and why. I like the strain in this poem and the dawning of the realization I was having. I feel like it’s a bit messy and I like it that way. I feel like it’s messy because the idea was so new to me, that there was less of the usual flow that’s in my writing. I invite you to check it out and may it help free you from any prisons of perfection you have been living in. Big hugs!!
False Perfection - a poem
What is the measure of perfection?
I have always strived for perfection without really ever having a true definition of perfection.
Recently I realized that it was some kind of false ideal that I was striving to, one that was unattainable, unrealistic and certainly not defined by me.
I was setting myself up to fail and to hate myself time and time again
As I was wanting to measure myself and my actions against a non-existent
Standard.
I have seen others hate themselves and berate themselves because they
Couldn’t measure up to their undefined standards of perfection.
Let’s rise up dear brothers and sisters.
Let us liberate ourselves from these false pretenses,
These false measures that are not based in any reality,
That are more like prisons that don’t have any walls.
Once you know there are no walls and everything is false
About the ideals we strive for that are not defined by any heart
Spirit or the Universe,
Then the false ideals fall away and
There is then time to get to know the way of the heart
The way that has always been there, waiting for the seeds of truth
To be planted within our hearts, once we step out of the darkness
Of the prison with no walls, into the gardens of our hearts,
Where there is always truth, nothing false and we remember
That everything is here to help us, even false pretenses.
Me, first thing in the morning, with beautiful Maggie
I wrote the poem below in April 2021. It is still so valid and really represents my journey in working towards a PhD in Being Me. It is very raw and vulnerable and makes me feel so proud of myself and how far I have come. May it inspire you too! xoxoxoxo
This is Me– a poem
Here I am
Burst open
Coming apart at the seams
Feeling emotional, happy, destroyed and broken
All at once
This is me
For years and years
I have tried to manage myself
Control myself
Force myself
Perfect myself
And all along
I was there
Waiting patiently under the surface
To be loved, seen, heard, valued and treasured
Just as I am
Here I am
Me
Anxious me
Sensitive me
Cautious me
Daring me
Chip eating and coke drinking me
The me who swears
The me who gets passionate about injustice
The me who is always trying to do the right thing because I care so much
The me who is so beautiful inside and out
Here I am
Me
I have stopped trying to compartmentalize me
Stopped trying to understand myself as a concept that can never be taught or mastered
But can only be lived as me
Holding my own hand from the inside out
Smiling at myself through all of my weaknesses and strengths
And moving forward anyway
Even if the way I feel, think, act and am isn’t in line with the vision of the perfect person I have nearly killed myself to be.
What if I’m just me
Exactly as I am
Just as I am
No more, no less
Just me?
I think it would be liberating and it would help me end the endless cycles of abuse I’ve been swirling in.
Today, I dare to do this.
Today, I hug myself instead of berate myself.
Today, I honor my battle scars and I tend to my wounds.
Today, I stop trying to be anyone other than me.
Today, I am just as I am.
With every breath I take, may I anchor greater personal freedom, liberation and acceptance for myself, for my family and for the wellbeing and evolution of all.
May you be blessed with the courage, strength and gentleness to be you, exactly you, just as you are.
I am with you, doing my best and being vulnerable as the beautiful, sweet soul I am and may you feel loved, just as you are.
I love this image. I took it at sunset a few weeks ago. It reminds me that there is a lot of beauty in the day’s transitions. Here is another of a sunrise from the front of my house.
These two images remind me that the sun doesn’t rush it’s rising or setting. Nor does it seem to judge what’s going on in the sky while it is going through those transitions. It just is. And it’s always perfect and beautiful. So, how can I translate this wisdom to myself?
Lately, I have been dealing with big feelings on and off. I’ve loved it because I am learning to allow myself space and time to be with my feelings. This is the opposite approach I used to take. It’s uncomfortable to be with some of these big feelings but it is also so liberating. I understand that they are here for a reason and that it is okay for me to sit with them, to just be with them. The other important thing I am learning is that I am okay even though I am feeling them. That is a big win.
So, these feelings are like a slow and glorious sunrise. There are different phases of a gorgeous sunrise. At first the sky gently starts to lighten. The sky may then explode into bursts of color, or highlight the underside of the clouds like in the second photo. Then the sun itself emerges over the horizon and creates this magnificent light and it feels like the world is celebrating. Afterwards, the sun continues to rise and bring us light and warmth (can you tell it’s winter here?).
I am seeing that my feelings have phases too. Sometimes they let me know they are there because I feel uncomfortable in my belly or chest. Other times, they explode and I feel them in my body and it’s like there is a shaking or a rumbling inside me. Occasionally it takes me a few days or weeks of my feelings rising and setting within me to understand their purpose and messages. That is what’s been going on for the past 3 weeks or so. The message in my feelings became clear to me on my walk this morning. It was perfect and beautiful and brought me much relief, even though I hadn’t liked feeling this way.
I also started understanding that being uncomfortable with these big feelings wasn’t wrong, it was like the feelings were incubating within me before they could burst out like a glorious sunrise and share their inspiration with me. I had to watch and feel those feelings set every night with the sun and know that they would rise again with the sun until I was ready.
Gosh, it is so freeing to understand myself and my feelings better. It feels so good to be making some sense of my life’s rhythms instead of constantly thinking I should be better at being happy all the time. I am a human. I have rhythms, I am affected by the winds of change within and around me, and that is a gift. I would rather be in sync with the rhythms on our beautiful planet than hold myself to some rigid expectations and suffer as a result.
May you all be blessed with so much ease, light and grace as you learn and explore your own natural rhythms too. With every breath you take, may you write beautiful treaties of peace with yourself, your feelings, your body, mind, heart and soul. Big hugs!
I have really been enjoying feeling angry in the last month. I have a complicated relationship with anger…I used to shove it down….I used to be scared of what I would do if I got angry, so I wouldn’t let myself even feel it. The problem is that it was fermenting and boiling inside of me.
I am feeling really hopeful because it has been easier for me to feel anger, which is a fabulous step in giving myself permission to feel anger. It also will allow anger to signal to me when there is a problem, which is its beautiful and very important purpose.
I wrote the following as I was exploring these new feelings. May it help you in connecting with any feelings you have also denied, shut down or shoved down. Thank you for reading. May your heart be light ❤️.
“Here I am Yet again Motherf#$&<ng mad and resentful as shit. It is overflowing from all over and within me and I hate it. I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t like it and it doesn’t feel like the way I want to feel. But here it is anyway, this anger and resentment is overwhelmingly loud, “What about me” And “Leave me alone” fill my being. I can imagine where those loud feelings come from but I still hate them. They are valid and completely fair, I just hate them anyway. I feel like I become a monster with no limits, just a big gaping maw of anger and this scares me. I trust myself and I feel incredibly guilty after this crushing wave of anger but I still trust myself. I wish I could trust the anger, trust what it is telling me about my needs to rest, put myself first and be still, but sometimes there is still life to live, so how do I balance it all? How do I invite more joy in my life without being realistic that I don’t always have energy for those joy bringing activities? Hmm, maybe it’s okay to get angry. What if I only feel guilty because I think I shouldn’t get angry? I love having boundaries. I love feeling them. I love knowing so easily now when one is being crossed and I need to take action. I f@#$ing love it. So…the past 2 times I got angry, my boundaries of what is acceptable behavior were massively violated. And I got angry. I guess what I’d like to do is respond in a way that feels better, less reactive, and more in a way I can feel better about. Like using my anger as a guide and then taking it a step further and using that anger to power a more conscious response instead of a lashing out response. That feels good. Okay, great. Thanks anger and resentment for teaching me this important lesson. I really appreciate it. There are always options, eh? Xoxoxo”
PhD in Being Me 