Replenish Yourself: Why and How

Prefer to read? Here’s a transcription of the video:

I want to talk to you today about why it is so important for you to replenish yourself, to practice self care and self appreciation and how you can do it.

So first of all, let me ask you, do you feel depleted, tired, exhausted, stressed?

Do you take care of everybody else in your family or at work? Kind of put yourself on the back burner? You will get to yourself at some point. You have time for everybody else, but not for yourself. Do you dream of just taking some time off? That the universe will provide you this situation where you can just go on vacation or just be there for yourself and, and just let go and not take care of everybody else.

But maybe you feel a bit bad about it or it’s just not possible for you to do that. Maybe you do feel guilty about taking time for yourself. Somehow, in our culture, it’s all about taking care of others of everybody else and never taking care of ourselves.

So first of all, we live in unsettling and uncertain times is climate change and ecological crisis and weather changes, extreme weather changes and disasters that are happening all over the planet. And every one of us is affected one way or another, more or less, but we’re all affected by it.

Then our political system is going mad and crazy and and becoming so extreme that we don’t know what to believe in or what truth is or how to stay centered. And then there’s economic pressure that so many of us go through.

And so this has a direct effect on our wellbeing. It depletes us, it stresses us, it overwhelms us. It creates spiritual stress, mental stress, emotional stress, and physical stress.

We’re overworked. We’re overextended. And we feel like we can’t stop.

We have bills to pay. We have people in our life to take care of. And if you’re a highly sensitive person or an empath who takes on other people’s emotions, then you’re even more stressed because you’re highly sensitive and you see the suffering in the world and you want to help. You are in this body in this lifetime to help others with your spiritual gifts, your emotional gifts, your superpowers that you have that so many people don’t have and are seeking. And so you really need to practice self care in order to replenish yourself so that you can continue giving and being compassionate to others. But you need to take care of yourself.

And I’ll take the simplest airplane example. Every time you take a plane, they go through the emergency procedures. When the oxygen masks fall down from above you, first of all, put the oxygen mask on yourself and then help a child or an elderly somebody next to you.

And why? Because if you have fainted, you have passed out of lack of oxygen, you’re not going to be of service to anybody else. You won’t be able to save or help anybody else on the plane. So that’s why you put it on yourself first. As simple as that.

And so somehow in our culture it’s become self-indulging or Naval gazing to take care of yourself, to take care of yourself first. It feels like it’s part of the individualistic me, me, me, I culture and we’re not supposed to do that. Probably comes from the Judah Christian belief and teachings as well to take care of everybody else and not have ourselves.

Well, I want to offer you a different perspective. If you believe that the world is interdependent as we’re talking about that more and more, the butterfly effect, the flaps of the wings of a butterfly on one side of the planet can affect a hurricane and create a hurricane on the other side of the planet. That’s how we are one whole on this planet and we are connected, interdependent and interconnected.

And so if you think of it, everything on our planet, you me, all of us are these points. These points are these fields of consciousness, energetic fields of intelligence. That’s what we each are.

Now, if we are interdependent and interconnected, then everything that we do and every state that we are in is going to affect, like the butterfly effect, is going to affect the whole.

First, it will affect whatever is the closest to us, what is interconnected, the closest to us. But then eventually everything else that’s further away, right? In more subtle ways. But if you can create a hurricane on one side of the planet with the flap of the wings of the butterfly on another side, then what we do has a huge effect. Even if we don’t immediately see the results of it. If we’re not aware of the results, neither is the butterfly.

When we are in our optimal state, then we are supporting the whole system from an optimal state rather than a depleted state, a stressed state, an overwhelmed state, spiritually depleted, emotionally overwhelmed, physically having ailments.

So it’s actually as simple as that. We each need to be in our optimal state, depending on our circumstances. We need to engage more. We need to organize ourselves in a different way. If it’s more stressful or less stressful. But we need to take care of ourselves. We need to replenish our energy.

We need to practice self care because then we can give of our best. And when we do that, it ripples out into the world.

So this is not about just taking care of ourselves and forgetting everybody else. It’s being able to give to others and continue to live our calling and serving the world, serving our world, but doing it from a place where we are replenished, where we feel vibrant, where we feel whole, where we don’t feel like we have nothing left in us and yet we continue and continue and continue and just deplete ourselves more and more.

What can you do to replenish yourself?

You know, for each one it’s going to be different. You might have a hobby that you neglect or that you do. Then go do more of it because when you do something that you love to do, you are replenished. The minute you are connected to source, to God, to love, to your own divinity, you are replenished automatically. You just, suddenly you just feel that this vibrant, blissful, loving energy is filling you and suddenly you can do anything.

Suddenly you’re not tired anymore. You probably had this experience, you feel really tired and then something engages you and then suddenly you’re fully engaged and you’re not tired anymore. What’s that about?

That’s because you’re connected to your higher self, to source, to the essence of your soul. That’s when you get replenished. That’s when you get vital energy from the universe that then allows you to be in your optimal state.

So a hobby, something you love doing. Any self care, like meditation, resting, just sleeping, gazing. You know, I sometimes just lie on the sofa and gaze out at the tree and look at the leaves and the birds. I do it sometimes for 5 or 10 minutes. So you see it’s not a very long time. But as I’m doing it, I feel like stress is leaving me. I’m just enjoying being in the moment, in the quiet or the moment it is so pleasurable. 5, 10 minutes. Five minutes is a long time to gaze at a tree and just look at the wind and the leaves moving and maybe a bird comes to visit.

Going out to nature, always spending time in nature will always replenish you. But you can also do it from your computer. If you don’t have access, direct access to nature, you can do it from your computer. There’s so many stunning images of nature and videos of nature that you could just pick a place on the planet that you love. If you love the forest or you love the desert or you love the ocean and you can just look at videos of the sea or look at a picture of you know, expansive nature and you will immediately feel replenished. You’ll feel more peaceful or excited or whatever the, the image of nature evokes in you.

Self care can also be in the form of exercising, going to the gym, doing something that is invigorating that brings more oxygen into your system, allows your muscles to work, which is what they’re meant to be doing. So that is a really important thing that you can also do to replenish yourself.

And then, you know, if you’d like to watch a movie or you like to read a book or to listen to any specific music, all of those, you like to dance, you like to play board games, whatever you like to do, connection with other people or time alone.

Now you do get different kind of replenishments when you’re out in the world doing something than when you kind of have a massage or sit quietly and gaze at a tree. So just be aware of that. And it also depends who you are, what your preferences are. Some people get replenished by being out with other people or inviting people over and having a yummy meal and playing a board game while others replenish themselves by listening to it a guided meditation with soothing music or gazing at a tree or you know, at night looking at the stars and the moon.

So to summarize, remember that you and I, each one of us is a point of consciousness, field of consciousness within this interconnected web of life on our planet.

And so whatever state you are in affects the whole more strongly, whoever you interact with and then it can move out to the entire planet, like the butterfly effect. And so when you are in your optimal state, that’s what you emanate. That’s what you share with the world.

And that’s where you can be at your best. Helping others, giving to others, sharing your gifts, your talents, your life purpose.

So take some time to replenish yourself. Appreciate yourself. Practice self care.

Leave a comment below if you have some ideas to share with us of what you’ve done or what you do to practice self care. Cause we can all learn from each other’s experience and each other’s wisdom.

Blessings.