Ignoring my True Nature
I can say from deep personal experience that the more we ignore our truths, the more we suffer internally. Your truth is a collection of your values, your personality, your feelings, your thoughts, your passions, your purpose, and all the things that make you, you. It's all the components that make up your Essence.
I spent years ignoring my truths, being disconnected from my Essence because of emotional blocks I held in my body and mind. I had negative thought patterns that prevented me from being confident in who I am. These thoughts held me back from my dreams and from success. I tried to fit myself into a box, to be like everyone else. The more I did that, the worse I felt. It took a while to pinpoint the anxiety and stress. When I started doing the inner work, it slowly became clear.
When ignoring your truths, you end up with tension in the body, in the tissues and in your spirit. You develop obsessive thought patterns because you’re ignoring what you really want. Your desires, your true purpose, will be talking to you and if you ignore it, that’s when dis-ease sets in. Long term, this can lead to injuries and illnesses of the body, mind and spirit.
Stop living for other people. Stop living in the way you THINK you’re supposed to live and live the way you WANT to live. It’s your life, and if you only have one, how do you want to spend it?
Steps to embrace your Essence and let your True Nature shine
There are 3 key steps to embrace your essence! Cultivate awareness of your Self in your regular, day to day life; Nurture connection to your Self with intentional time spent doing different activities with the purpose of connecting and seeing your reaction; Create your reality by letting go and focusing on what brings you joy.
1- Cultivate awareness of your body, mind, and spirit
You're a complex being. Your body, mind, and spirit are always busy doing many things. Use your curiosity and your kindness to explore! Start to notice what’s going on in all the levels of your Being. Awareness runs deep, and there's many levels to it. It's always good to start small, simply by noticing what's happening in your body, in your mind, or in your spirit in certain situations. From there, you can build your level of awareness and then really start getting into and exploring the reasons why that's all happening.
Let's break this step down so you can see HOW you can cultivate awareness.
Become aware of your body.
Observing your body is usually an easier place to start. Being aware of your body might include noticing digestive issues, how your body reacts to certain foods and making a connection to your energy. Maybe it’s noticing the intricate elements of your menstrual cycle, respiratory system, what’s happening when you exercise or move. What happens in your body when you do this or that? Start your journey of curious exploration!
Become aware of your mind.
I think we all know that there's always a lot going on in the mind. There's even more going on than we're aware of, because not all of it comes to the conscious mind. So in your mind, what do you notice? Are there negative beliefs which can also show up in your body? (We tend to store emotions in our tissues.) When observing your mind, do you notice particular thought patterns that repeat? Do you notice self-deprecating thoughts or do you notice thoughts that are trying to boost you up and motivate you? And why? Why are you having those kinds of thoughts or experiencing those kinds of emotions?
Become aware of your spirit
Once you’re more aware of your body and mind and all the goings-on, it becomes easier to become aware of your spirit. Here, you want to notice the energy of your spirit and how it feels. You can compare it to the energies of the spirits of other people or other things that you touch. Plants, animals…everything has an energy. There's always energies interacting with you. Whatever you touch or come close to, there's an interaction of energy. Is that something you're aware of? Do you notice when you interact with certain people or certain things, or Nature? Do you feel a certain way after? Perhaps it makes you feel good or it makes you feel not good. Explore! Contemplate. Why might that be the case?
Your body, mind, and spirit are so connected, so related, that it's hard to isolate any one. The impact on one will trickle throughout all of them. Like how we store our issues in our tissues. Emotions often get trapped in the body, not just the mind. Stay curious and stay open to the possibilities.
The goal is to build awareness of your Being so that you can connect to your Essence, to your True Nature and let that energy flow. You may find blocks as you observe - emotions and tension stored in the body that prevent your energy from flowing freely. Start the inner work to clear those blocks and let go of past pain and emotions. As you cultivate a profound awareness of your body, mind, and spirit, you’ll learn to connect to the energies flowing through you and connect to your true Essence.
2- Nurture connection to your body, mind, and spirit
From noticing to now, experimenting! Connecting to your body, mind, and spirit involves delightful experimentation. Step 1 involved observing and identifying blocks. This step is about intentional actions to see how you'll respond. And then pursuing those actions that make you feel good and reduce stress, anxiety, overthinking, and "being in your head".
Connect to your body
Try movement of different kinds! If it's dance that gets your spirit shining, do it! If it's lifting weights, or anything that gets your heart rate up so that your nervous system feels super awesome after and you get all those endorphins, do it! The point is to try new things to see how your body responds. Maybe it's exercising outside. Maybe it's Tai chi. There's also nutritional aspects to this. Connect with the food you're eating and discover how it impacts your body. Explore the emotional relationship with food as well.
Breathwork is another effective way to connect to your body. (And also your mind and spirit.)
Connect to your mind
You can connect to your mind through movement, meditation, breathwork, and quiet time. This will help you cultivate a calmness, a serenity in your mind. If you can practice that enough, you'll develop mental strength. Even when your life gets super chaotic, you can come back to that grounding sensation of a serene mind and move forward in a calm and peaceful manner, instead of in a stressed or agitated state.
Connect to your spirit
You can also connect to your spirit through movement and meditation and any other creative way that you can find. This includes making art, and any form of creative exploration and expression. Playing is such a great way to connect to your spirit. Playing is uninhibited, unplanned, unstructured and whatever you want it to be. The idea is that you're so in the moment that you're not worried about what's happening next or overthinking about the past. You're so in the moment that your Spirit can flow freely.
3- Create your reality
From observation, to experimentation, to designing! The first 2 steps will help you understand the patterns of your body, mind, and spirit and see where you've been acting (or reacting) in ways that aren't aligned with your True Nature. You'll uncover a lot, you'll learn a lot. This step is the one where you put it all into action! This is where you take control of your story and create the reality you want.
If you're new to the idea of 'creating your reality", it's all based on your thoughts and how you see yourself and the world. What you think becomes reality. Our brains are wired to believe what we tell them. So this is where you can change the story.
A big part of this step is letting go.
Letting go of all the crap you uncovered- the negative beliefs, the past traumas and emotions, etc. Letting go of anything that doesn't align with who you REALLY are. Expectations from other people. Societal ideals that you disagree with. Fears around being judged or feeling shame.
When you create your reality...
You are very aware and very present of your thoughts, your body, and your spirit. When a trigger happens, you can manage your emotions and your reactions. You can stay grounded in your Essence and respond from a place of love, instead of from a place of fear or agitation.
You manage how you're spending your energy. That's a big one! You decide where you put your energy and who you give it to. You decide when enough is enough and set your boundaries.
You manage your body and support your health. You pursue what makes your body thrive.
Everything seems easier, flows naturally. You can hear your inner voice and truths!
You develop the courage to follow your passions and your purpose.
Practice and Time
It takes time to peel away the layers of external influence and internal blocks to let your Essence shine. Now you know what you can do to help you reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, overwhelm and help you feel more confident in your Self. You may notice that the steps aren't actually linear. You'll flow between them as you work on different aspects of your healing.
These actions will help you reconnect with your values, figure out what you want in life and connect to your True Nature. The more you practice, the easier it gets to let your beautiful Essence shine. Share your unique gifts with the world. We'll all be better for it. :)
Much love,
Andreana
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