The Ultimate Guide To Self Care
I fell apart after almost 3 months of constant travel. I wrote you about this a few weeks ago… click HERE to read it.
The reason, I discovered, was that I wasn’t in touch with my needs or doing things to fill myself up on a daily basis.
This seems to be a recurring theme in my life and the lives of my students, so I thought I would share some short cuts I found to getting to the core of your needs and tapping on the blocks that are standing in your way…
Many personal development leaders talk about how to love yourself more, take more time to play, don’t be so hard on yourself, buy yourself flowers, wear something pretty, do your makeup, etc.
If you’re anything like me, you probably roll your eyes at how silly those things sound because they won’t really help you with whatever your big problem is.
Well, that is partially true, and here is why…
While I still roll my eyes a bit when I hear things like this, it’s not because I don’t believe in it, it’s because I know how hard it is for women to treat themselves this way until they clear the childhood wounds blocking them from actually doing it.
If they don’t take this step, buying flowers just for the hell of it will actually trigger deep subconscious feelings of shame…
The more work I’ve done on myself around clearing my blocks to my deepest desires and needs, the more I find myself naturally being drawn to things that make me feel amazing:
walks on the beach, snuggles with my dog, setting healthy boundaries with the people around me, and meditating each day are just some of the things I found that really fill me up.
I don’t know about you, but I would MUCH rather naturally be drawn to do nice things for myself than to add “buy myself flowers” to my to-do list.
This is one of the major philosophies behind my work with the Think and Thin 6-Week and 6-Month Advanced Students.
For example: How hard is it to tell yourself to eat less of the food on your plate at every meal?
But when we clear the subconscious memories of your parents telling you to “clean your plate” from childhood, (like we do in our programs) students naturally eat less without even trying…
I think this is a much more fun way to change your life… it’s natural, intuitive, and you never have to force yourself to do it. You just do it because that’s the new programming running in your subconscious mind…
But I digress… back to the issue of needs.
See, many of us grow up in an unhealthy environment with bad boundaries, and fair enough, our parents probably weren’t psychology majors or experts in child development.
So, when we were young, we had a need, we asked for that need to be met, and then we got told things like:
We don’t have time for that
We don’t have money for that
That’s NOT the most important thing right now
NO, you can’t do that.
You’re so selfish
And we usually heard these things in a very condescending tone… the tone makes the biggest difference.
When our parents react this way to our desires, we develop a belief that we should be ashamed of ourselves for even having them in the first place.
This leads to a complete overriding of feeling our needs and desires as adults.
Obviously, parents can’t fulfill every need or desire of their children, so it makes sense that we heard “no” a lot.
What really needs to happen to develop a healthy sense of connection to our needs, is to feel that our parents at least honor them.
A better response would be something like: “I know you really want that cupcake sweetie, it looks really yummy, but if you eat that, it’s going to make your tummy hurt and I care about you too much to let that happen. How about I make you a special snack when we get home?”
Even though the child still might not be happy with the parents choice, at least she felt heard for her desires and she gets something she wanted, even if it wasn’t her first choice.
Exercise:
Think about something you want from someone in your life right now:
More alone time?
More help around the house?
More connection?
More fun nights out?
Then think about asking them for that…
I don’t mean demanding it, like, “You need to start helping me more…” remember, tone is everything.
I mean asking from your heart. This will be HARD, but we’ll do some tapping to make it easier…
Hi, I would really love if you could do help me more around the house, do you think you can do that for me at times?
Check inside, how does this make you feel on a scale from 0-10?
If you’re overwhelmed, overworked and generally not happy with your life, this exercise will probably cause you some anxiety… I bet you don’t even ask for your needs to get met until it’s bottled up inside you and you explode in anger, overwhelm and tears. Am I right???
(the only reason I know is that I have been this way a lot too, so no judgment ;-) )
Ok, so let’s help you out with this….
Chances are you’ll feel frustrated about asking for your needs to get met because its probably something you’ve been burying for a long time.
So when you tap, feel the frustration, and the key here is to get this frustration out of your body… so use power in your voice and in your tapping. We talk a LOT about frustration and anger in the Think and Thin Advanced Program – this is one of THE MOST powerful things you can do to change your life…
So let’s do a bit of tapping here:
Think about asking for your needs to get met in some situation. You might not even know what your needs are, you’ll just feel frustrated and overwhelmed when you think about that situation. Notice how much anxiety you have on a scale from 0-10.
Start tapping
Needs?
I don’t know what my needs are
I can’t even feel my needs
I can’t feel my needs until it’s waaaay too late
I just push through,
I can get through one more day
I can do one more thing
I can add one more thing to my plate
I’m doing it anyway, let me just do that, too
It will be faster If I just do it
Ask for help?
What’s that?
There’s no one to help me!
It will be easier if I do it
Let me take that on, too
Because I’m worried that if I relax,
I’ll collapse
If I relax I’ll turn into a little puddle
And I’ll never get anything done
So, I’ve got to force myself to do it
Will myself to do it
I’ve got to do it do it do it!
Ahhhhh! It’s soooo frustrating
I hate being like this
I feel soooo overwhelmed
I hate feeling overwhelmed
I’m mad all the time
And I hateaeeeeeeee thiiiisssss
And I do it to myself…
I don’t like having so much on my plate
I’m not happy
It doesn’t feel good
Big breath
And the truth is,
I’m actually afraid to speak up for my needs
I’m afraid to even know what I need
Because way back then
It wasn’t okay for me to have needs
It wasn’t okay for me to have desires
Or boundaries
Or be separate
I had to do what they wanted me to do
ALL THE TIME
It wasn’t okay for me to ask for what I want
They called me selfish
Selfish for having needs
For having boundaries
So every time I ask for what I want
I feel scared
Like I’m doing something wrong
All this fear for speaking up for my needs
Fear that they are going to shame me
Fear that I’m doing something wrong
Fear that I can’t have what I want
GRRRRRR it makes me soooo angry!
Breath
I’m sooooo sick of struggling with this!
I hate it I hate it I hate it!
Im soooooo angry!
Fuck YOU
These are my needs
My desires
I want this
And YOU have to be ok with it!
So angry for not getting my needs met for so long
I feel like they have been bottled up inside of me for a lifetime
There’s a million of them
And as soon as I get in touch with them I’m going to explode like a volcano
I’m going to blow and I won’t know what to do with myself
I’ll be a mess
And I won’t be able to get anything done
Because I have all these needs
And it’s soooo fucking messy
And I don’t know where to start
And I don’t know what I feel like
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Big breath… tune into your emotional state here, what is your anxiety level on a scale from 0-10? You might need to do more tapping on anger, or sadness… just feel whatever is coming up and say out loud whatever words you hear in your head.
When I think about sharing my need for xyz
I still feel shame
So I release the shame and judgement for having needs
For wanting this
I release and let go and the judgement
I’ve carried it for waaaaay too long
It’s ok for me to have my needs met
It’s ok that I want this
There’s nothing wrong with it
I’ve judged myself for sooooo long
I need this,
I want this
And I am totally okay with it
And so are the people around me
Because when my needs are met
I’m at my best
And the truth is
The people around me are supportive of me
They want me to be happy
They want me at my best
Breath
So maybe it’s okay to have needs
Maybe it’s ok to actually feel what I want and need
Because when I’m in alignment with my needs
And communicate them appropriately
They get met
And that makes me relax
And the truth is
I’m in charge of my life
I’m in charge of my destiny
I am in charge of the way I feel day to day
and moment to moment
I’m in charge of my happiness
I’m in charge of my schedule and free time
I get to decide how I show up in my life
I get to decide how I want my life to look
I can create whatever life I want to create
I have the ability to do anything in the world
I am a powerful resourceful creator
I can create absolutely any life I want
So I am accepting myself completely
For having needs
and wanting my needs to be met
It’s safe for me to have what I desire
I am loving myself through this process
I love being in touch with myself
I love feeling my best
I love feeling free and filled up with love
I love being the person I was born to be
Big deep breath. Tune in again to the original thought, of asking someone to help you with something or meet one of your needs, and notice how you feel about it now on a scale from 0-10. If you still have any anxiety at all, start the tapping over from the beginning.
Sending you lots of love and light,
Brittany
P.S. If you want to go deeper with this and work more closely to me and my team of coaches, you can schedule a call with us today to find out if the Think and Thin Program is right for you.
