HEARTfelt Habits is a BRAND NEW library of content which is all about helping you get in touch or get better connected with you from the inside out. It’s about helping you take a look at what’s possible for you, giving yourself a moment to be in a space that’s for you. So that you can learn to put yourself back on the list once more.
One of the things that I see often, in so many conversations that I have with women in my world is that if there’s a list, let’s not call it a to do list but a priority list, the general feeling is they don’t know where they are on it if they’re even on it at all or if they’ve even got a list .
There’s no one size fits all. This series is intended to be just a few minutes each week to give you something to think about for that week. To help you know that it’s okay to do that before you think about what everybody else needs – all the bloody time.
HEARTfelt habits is here to help you gently find a way to put you higher up that infamous list. Each week you can take some time to gently help you to assess, look at where you are, and then start to think about where you want to be.
We started last week with the phrase ‘Ask yourself’ which was about asking something of yourself in a way that you start to think actually, what do I need? This week’s is called ‘Gather yourself’ – so what do I mean by that?
It’s about taking a step back, before gaining a bit more momentum with the big questions like ‘ Who am I and what do I need?’
You might start to gather yourself when you’re starting to think ‘Alright, well, maybe I need to do something different.’ It feels a little bit scary. The idea of that feels a little bit too big. Maybe it feels a little unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
Gathering yourself is really about giving yourself permission to have that moment where you know you’re about to start doing something – maybe – a little bit differently. Perhaps if you’re putting yourself – at least somewhere – on a list – that’s going to mean that you are making some changes in your world. And you’re not really sure how that will go down with the people or connections that you might have, or things that you might currently be doing. They’re actually benefiting from you putting everything else on that list first.
Telling you to ‘gather yourself’ really is suggesting you take that time to be getting ready to do this. Instead of just going full pelt. It’s a very gradual thing but just in allowing yourself a thinking, feeling, breathing moment, just to be pondering if you are actually going to start this life-changing shift in your attitude towards yourself – because you know that something needs to change. And you’re gathering your energy, gathering your thoughts, gathering your emotions, so that you feel ready to do something with it.
if you don’t take this bit of time now to just steady yourself a little bit, laying the foundations for moving forward, just taking this bit of time to just say to yourself ‘It’s okay, that I’m thinking I need to do something about this.’
It’s okay. I’m telling you it is – nobody ever needs to give you permission to do anything differently, but you might be feeling a bit strange and unusual and you don’t know what it means. That’s okay.
You probably do need to give yourself a bit of permission to say to yourself all right. So I’ve had a little bit of a look at what all of this is that’s going on around me that I feel so disconnected and maybe low and drained and taken for granted and just I don’t have a minute for myself.
So in gathering yourself together and almost bringing yourself in a little bit, holding yourself and giving yourself that little bit of TLC, you realise that this isn’t about anybody but you.
It doesn’t need to be a conversation that you have with anybody but yourself. Gathering yourself to know that it’s okay to feel like you need to do this. And it’s also okay to be getting yourself in a place where you’re going to start putting yourself if not first, at the very least higher up that list because when all of the other things become more important, you really are telling yourself a story that you don’t matter.
What I’m doing is finding a way to re-educate you about telling yourself that your needs are not as important as everybody else’s. Your self-worth goes lower and lower down the list. Your needs become less important – although they’re not. And you can convince yourself that doing that is actually less necessary or isn’t essential. But there will come a time when you then realise that If you don’t then what happens. If you’re not here to be able to evaluate it because quite frankly, your brains got up and wandered out of the room because you’ve got so many things on the go and you don’t even know who you are. You’re going to notice that.
So I really just wanted to just almost give that to you for you to spend a little bit of a moment with it and be like oh shit, yeah.
I know because I have done this myself. I have been there.
I have been that person that thought I had to think about absolutely everything for everybody else. And not give myself any kind of space or any opportunity even to be myself in a way that works for me.
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I do understand that because I know this is something that needs to be dealt with. It’s a conversation that I have so often. Here’s how we are going to start helping you find a way to put yourself back on that list and then gradually find ways to move up it so that your needs are considered, they are seen as important, and taken care of – so that your needs are met.
If you don’t start to meet your needs, you’re constantly going to be running round like you’re on a hamster wheel. And I don’t want that for you. I really don’t.
Gathering yourself is about just kind of making yourself a little space where you can recognise that something is going to happen here. And I need to think about what that means for me. And get myself ready to do that thing.
Imagine if you were an athlete and you were running a race and it wasn’t something that you’d done before. Would you just put on your sports gear, get to the starting line, ready, set go?
Or would you do a bunch of preparation stuff beforehand? Would you do some training? Would you start eating better? Would you mentally get yourself in that zone?
This is kind of what that is for, mentally and emotionally preparing yourself and laying those foundations to do something a little bit bigger.
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
So, that’s this week’s HEARTfelt habit.
Take some time to gather yourself – your emotions, your thoughts, your energy. Gather your headspace together so that it’s in a place where you are seeing and realising and understanding ‘this is what needs to happen’.
Affirmation: I make things happen. A super powerful statement – because if you don’t take the action, then what is going to change?