Insightful Inspirations

Self-Care
Honor yourself

Right now is a time of endings, the end of past patterns and beliefs that are no longer serving you. You may be going to a major life change or a minor one. There is a lot of clearing going on for all of you now and it is going to be a great thing. You have to clear the garden to grow even more beautiful plants. A cleared garden may look empty and barren, but the possibilities lie under the soil. Seeds of new beginnings are already growing; they just need room to break the surface.
If you are experiencing fatigue, dizziness, etc., it may be time for you to take a step back and look at the patterns in your life and let go of those that are no longer serving you. This may feel like a death of sorts, which may be uncomfortable, but it is important to gather your strength and prepare for the great things to come.
Nothing is wrong with you; you are just letting go of old patterns that you have been using for too long. It feels like a death of sorts, which obviously can be uncomfortable. You may mourn a little bit and meet resistance from those who will be most affected by anything ending or changing in your life. This is a time to gather up strength and let you prepare for the great things that are up ahead.
Insightful Inspiration: Now is the time to honor your body and your physical needs. If you need a nap, take a nap. If you need to take a day or week off, do it. Take care of yourself right now. This is the perfect time to go inward and listen to what you really want. Honor that and know you are doing the best you can right now.
Questions to Consider:
• What does your body want right now that you are denying it?
• Is denying your body helping or hurting your efforts?
• How effective are you right now? Are you feeling like you are taking on too much?
• How do you feel about taking care of yourself? Do you have resistance to it? Do you make excuses not to do it?

Validation
Validate yourself

Right now you are trying to shed your addiction to external validation. You are shedding the need to have other people tell you that you are doing a good job or doing the “right” thing.
Sometimes you need this break from other people’s opinions so you can remind yourself of what your own ideas are. Sometimes you need a little isolation to reconnect with your own truth. It doesn’t mean that you are not going to have people in your lives that love you and support you. It just means you will get back to yourself first and go forward, wanting people in your life but not needing them. There is so much more freedom in that for everyone.
Insightful Inspiration: Take notice of where you are addicted to external validation. Validate who you are and the rest of the world will tend to agree. As long as you do it for yourself first, those who don’t value you won’t matter. Seek the voice you hear inside you and from the universe that gives you all the validation you need. Learn to hear that voice as it is a beautiful sound!
Questions to Consider:
• Do you try and convince other people that your ideas are the right ideas?
• Do you let other people take you off your path because they told you it wasn’t right in some way?
• Are you relying on other people to tell you that you are right, okay, or on the right track?
• Are you addicted to external validation for who you are or what you think?
• What can you do to validate yourself more?

Duplicity
Notice the reflections

Double standards or hypocrisy is the concept of judging someone else for something that you turn around and do yourself. We often tell our kids, friends, and family not to do the very thing we do. In addition to doing it, we have told ourselves that this very thing is bad and we would never do it, yet we do.
The world is a reflection of us. It is easier to work things out in our own mind if we are looking at it as a third party. If we learn to look ourselves with neutrality and less emotionally, we begin to be able to shift the judgment off each other and simply work on improving ourselves.
Insightful Inspiration: See if you can take in the awareness of the hypocrite within you. Offer it a little healing and release it, without judgment, to be transmuted into whatever it is trying to become. Just by noticing it, you are changing it.
Questions to Consider:
• What are you being hypocritical about?
• Is there something you tell someone else not to do, that you yourself do?
• What can you learn about yourself from the things you think and say about others?
• What is this person reflecting back to you, about you?


Do Nothing
Step back

Sometimes we rush to do things just to get them over with only to find out it make things worse or takes longer. We are trying to escape the situation or control the outcome when we should just relax and learn the lesson from it.
Insightful Inspiration: Take note of what you are feeling right now and step back from the situation. Things will become clearer if you do nothing. Just wait and see.
Questions to Consider:
• Will you be able to step back and let things unfold?
• What feelings come up when you think of doing nothing?
• What are the underlying fears about doing nothing?
• What is the worst case scenario? What is the best case scenario?
• Will you let the best case scenario be the positive energy you need to step back for a moment?
• What do you think it being served by hanging on to the worst case scenario? Is this the truth?


No Expectations
Give without expectations

If you knew that your actions were not going to receive any recognition, would you still do them? No one would say “thank you” or know it was you who did it. No one would change their actions or even be grateful for what you have done. Would you still give of your time, effort, or resources?
If you think about it, gifts with expectations are really not gifts. The strings they come with cause us to reject anything anyone gives us because we do not agree with the expectations.
Insightful Inspiration: Give you energy and effort to the situations with no strings attached. Become aware of how often your motive for doing something for someone else is for something in return. See if you can just give without expecting anything back.
Questions to Consider:
• What are you giving someone else with expectations that they will do something in return?
• Are you willing to give this, even if they don’t do anything with it?
• Will you give things without expectations of anything in return?
• What is the resistance to letting go of expectations? How is it serving you?


Communicate
Listen to yourself

So often our differences with other people stem from communication issues. Someone said something they didn't mean, we thought someone said something awful, we don't mean what we say, etc. We know this about relationships and often spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is going wrong.
What we don't look into is the communication with ourselves. Our thoughts, our bodies, our emotions are all forms of self-communication. We assume we can communicate well with ourselves, but the fact is, sometimes we don't.
Insightful Inspiration: Stop and listen to yourself. Really listen. Be aware of what you are communicating with yourself. Maybe it is an aching thought that keeps coming up about something that you think is silly and you keep putting it off. Pull that thought out and talk to it. Sit with that thought and feel it with complete awareness.