“When you stand with the blessings of your mother and God, it matters not who stands against you” ~ Nigerian Proverb

Consider your self, 
your soul,  
"Sacred". 
You are wonderfully created, 
do not discount yourself as 'nothing' 
or put yourself down. 
You have the where-with-all to stand proud; 
everything you need is there for you. 
Appreciate who you are and what you have. 

Let go of  "old Garments"; 
it is time to put on the new. 
Those old thoughts that cling to you 
that continually bring you down - let them go, 
they no longer serve you. 
Cultivate new thoughts of kindness, 
compassion and action. 
Be true to yourself, 
and be faithful to who you've been created to be. 
Do not be self-effacing, 
this is not true humility.  
Choose to simply be you. 
No longer do you need to prove who you are. 
You are already YOU. 


You have worth. 
You are precious and highly prized. 
Yes you are vulnerable, 
and perhaps feel ordinary, that is good too, 
but you are valuable as you are. 
You are a creative human-being 
and an agent of love. 
Your spiritual life 
is also a role model
for other souls. 

You do not need to impress anybody, 
you don't need to perform for anyone. 
You are enough, special, sacred, 
amazing and wonderful. 
When a mother settles her eyes on her baby 
for the first time she looks with wonder; 
that baby was and is you. 
Now it is time to see your true worth 
through the eyes of the "internal mother's wonder"- 
That is how you nurture yourself. 
Know that you are loved. 

Seeing your true worth through the eyes of the “internal mother’s wonder…”

It is tricky to say good bye to the ‘You‘ that no longer serves us as we grow and we mature; hopefully into the person we were meant to be. Watching oneself grow and become the person we are mean to be can be a wondrous thing.

Imagine ….you see a ladybug, grasshopper or crab who has grown too big for it’s exoskeleton. It is ‘bursting at the seams.’ You watch it wiggle out of it’s old shell. The struggle is part of the process of the inner soft shell becoming stronger. It probably feels a bit tender and vulnerable for a while; then a little later it goes on it’s way. But look! there is one ladybug dragging it’s empty shell along behind it. You ask it why it is doing that – and it might answer back:

I’m keeping my old shell because it is comforting to hold onto it; it is all I know.

Hmmm you ponder, and finally you say

‘but do you know that you would be able to move a lot faster and find places of hiding a lot more suited to you if you were not encumbered by your baggage? Life would be a lot easier and you could fly free.’

‘Yes,’ says the ladybug, ‘but I still feel vulnerable and I like the patterns on my old shell’.

….and so the conversation continues…

---

It’s hard saying goodbye to personal belongings that feel familiar or have sentimental meaning, and it is harder still, letting go of old habits or behaviors which we know we need to let go of, we see the benefits of the freedom yet we keep grabbing onto the past… behaviors and habits. It is hard to say goodbye to comfortable ways but if we could turn and say hello to those new practices and habits we’d see they are so beneficial for us – it could then be easier to say goodbye to the old baggage. Sometimes we feel like we don’t know ourselves or haven’t clarified what practices we want in our lives. It helps to clarify what habits are staying, what habits are going and what new ones are taking the place of the old habit.

Finding Time

This is an example from my own life. I kept asking myself ‘where is the time going to?’ I have all these things I want to do plus all the things I have to do and I feel quite frustrated by the state of affairs. I found a worthwhile exercise by Joshua Becker which encourages one to audit our use of time. For a few days I observed my actions (without judgement) writing down what I had done each hour in the day. It doesn’t have to be pedantic. A pattern will emerge. Then I analyzed which of my habits supported my core values and which habits just detracted. It was easy to see the time wasters.

Without going into too much detail my start of the day had become boundary-less. I highlighted the time wasters making up an hour and planned to eliminate the time wasters but what I didn’t do was clarify exactly what I wanted to replace it with. Vague plans produce vague results. Not too long afterwards I stumbled upon an idea by a Jay Shetty Podcast for an early morning routine which resonated with me. I’m not saying you have to do this routine but I do recommend finding a routine that suits you.

Research does seem to point to having a morning routine to start you up for the day. When I was a teenager I thought it was a superstitious belief but apparently it does help set you up with the right start. Replacing the old destructive routine with something more constructive made it a lot easier to stick to. The first 5 days were powerful, but the 6th and 7th days were the weekend and I thought ‘I’ll just take the weekend off‘. What a bad idea. It didn’t feel good. I felt cut adrift and lackluster. So on day 8 I returned to my new routine and I have found it really beneficial since then. It has been 3 weeks now. I have two hours extra in the morning because my routine now allows for starting an hour earlier as well as the constructive hour. I keep marveling at how much time I have during the day. I have also found it easier to focus on the personally important stuff rather than just being at life’s beck and call.

When we see our true worth and begin to honor our core values with helpful practices we are set free to live the life we are meant for. We are more able to discard the ’empty shell’ and move with confidence and conviction. And when we do this we honor our souls and treat them with sanctity.

Wishing you a great weekend

~ Morag Noffke~

Here are the two podcasts I referred to: