I like giving homework to my clients in session. Not to add onto their already-full to-do list, but to give them permission to focus on practice. I love it when they see how 5 minutes a day is all it takes to feel freedom. Assigning it as homework helps them to feel accountable to do the work it takes to know themselves. Without conditions. With clear seeing. With the kind of loving devotion that they so need, want, and deserve.
A lot of psychological and spiritual theories out there tell us we need to love ourselves before we can love anyone else. People hear this and intellectually understand, but knowing this in your body, knowing this in your bones… well, that’s a whole different ball game.
I’m not talking a simplified watered-down internet meme. I’m talking about actual self-love. The kind made of deep healing – the kind that only comes from within you.
Here’s my go-to 5-minute practice that can CHANGE EVERYTHING (for the better). If you experiment with this even for just the next 7 days (though I say aim for 30!)… you will begin to experience meaningful shifts.
PRACTICE
1. Devote 5 minutes every day to self-connect.
2. Go within to connect to a part of you that feels activated, wounded, scared, insecure, or shadowy in some way.
3. Invite this part to share openly with you. Ask it a bunch of questions. Stay open to hearing what it shares with you.
4. Build trust with this part as a compassionate ally and a curious friend.
5. Start taking small (or big if you’re feeling bold!) steps towards giving this part what it’s saying it needs.
THE BENEFITS
This process of self-connection, even for just 5 minutes a day, does a few powerful things which make it worth doing. If you’re looking to create changes for the better, self-connecting is a fundamental place to start. Goal setting, action-planning, solution-finding will all come later. Without this first step though, it’s going to be hard to create momentum towards actual sustained change.
This 5-minute self-connection practice offers:
→ Self-regulation: we regulate when we notice what’s happening with us and we respond from that place of awareness. When we’re dysregulated, we’re out of touch with our truth because we’re in a place of trauma. This practice invites us to regulate with our own capacity to soothe whatever’s been activated.
→ Knowing yourself better: knowing yourself better is an incredible benefit to this practice. When we know ourselves (an eternal process of discovery) we’re better able to make decisions and reflect before reacting. It improves our relationships, our environments, and how we feel towards ourselves! The more we know ourselves the more peace, trust, and confidence we feel overall.
→ Less reactivity: This practice starts to build the tools required to reflect and respond instead of reacting. The heat of reactivity can create a lot of undesirable consequences that usually leave us and whoever else is around feeling crummy. Reactivity is an automatic series of conditionings that operate from a heightened state of arousal. It’s mostly not helpful or trustworthy, or refined enough to build connection.
→ The list almost doesn’t end. This practice is a potent medicine for a lot of ailments!
INTEGRATE
It’s important to commit to this practice. Change happens through reinforcement over time. Integration happens when we process (get clear on) and then reinforce the more true narrative (through repetition over time).
Integration is the actual rewiring of how you relate to and understand yourself in more true ways. Through this practice, you’ll begin to integrate new more helpful, and authentic ways of being. When you operate from this place, everything you need to change will.
If you want more clear guidance and an outline for building a better life then Join my FREE Mini-Workshop on Transforming Limiting Beliefs →
To maximize the experience:
1. Download the Teachable app to access the materials with ease.
2. Set an intention for a transforming experience.
3. Commit to delving in with your whole heart and full presence.
You deserve this.
It guides you to better understand:
- What self-limiting beliefs are
- How to discover them within yourself
- How to free yourself from longstanding internalized limitations.
This free mini-workshop centers around increasing awareness and unblocking barriers.
It will give you a brief and comprehensive overview of how to build empowerment through the medicine of belief.
Comes with:
- Lessons for New Awareness and Psycho-Spiritual Knowledge
- 1 Meditation for Deep Cognitive Discovery and Integration
- Exercises and Journal Prompts for Clarity and Action
This work WILL change your life.
If you’re ready for true transformation, let’s do this.