Self-care in times of chaos

In January of this year, I wrote about appreciating the phase of life that you are in. Since living in the northern hemisphere, I now often feel like September is a mini-January. The energy in September tends to be similar to that of the start of the year. Once back from Summer break, people now need to recommit to work, and schedules, and often with the start of the new school year, and after having a break, we vow that we will start doing things differently.

I’ve been silent for two months. I have spent the whole month of August back in South Africa visiting with friends and family. It was both a glorious, and a painful experience – bittersweet in other words. There were beautiful and incredible moments of joy and connection, and there were painful moments, challenging moments, and moments of growth and insight.

We arrived back in Canada just before the start of school and I have found the first week of September especially challenging, because I was trying to recover from jetlag, and settle my kids back into a routine. So, it’s interesting how I found myself in the first week of September, already wondering how I will get through the rest of September… Perhaps this feels familiar to you too?

And yet, often, even when I feel less resourced, I find myself still pushing through. One of the stories running in the background was, “You can’t be tired now. You just came back from a vacation.” And yet, my Higher Self knows just how much it can take out you to be travelling across the world with two small children, and how little actual rest is involved, when you are desperately trying to catch up with loved ones during the limited time you have available to see them.

For me, personally, January of this year did in fact represent a period of expansion and growth, and I now find myself at the end of September, no longer in that period of expansion and growth, but rather in a phase of many completions – including the Living As If You Matter group. Without judging the phase of life I find myself in as wrong or bad in any way, the question simply becomes, what resonates or feels aligned right now? Do I continue expanding, or do I slow down, and allow the change in seasons to also be a change in pace?

During the first week of September, when I was navigating jetlag, and a sense of trying to play catch up, while trying to get back into a normal routine after more than a month away from home, my coach reminded me that my only job was to get myself back into my window of tolerance. And I was so thankful for the reminder. We live in a culture that praises deprivation and burnout. And we can so easily get caught in the trap of busyness without slowing down to question what we are staying busy for or whether our busyness really serves us right now?

It takes tremendous courage to slow down in a world that wants us to constantly speed up. It takes courage to choose to be intentional about rest and play in a world that wants us to believe that those things are frivolous. I’m reminded of The Ladder of Consciousness – something I learnt from Steve Chandler.

Steve says that every day we are moving up and down on the Ladder of Consciousness. The Ladder of Consciousness determines our level of energy, enthusiasm, and engagement in our lives and in the tasks in front of us. Depending on our level of consciousness, our level of alertness, and energy, we are actually different selves during the course of the day. Our Lower Self is less energised and creative. Our Higher Self experiences higher energy and high creativity. Our moods affect our state of mind and our level of engagement in our lives.

When we are coming from a place of fear, it’s difficult to find inspiration, or come up with creative solutions to the challenges we are facing. Steve believes that anger is just fear in disguise. Worry is chronic, manageable fear, and resentment is chronic, manageable anger, and yet, all these states of being are not helpful to us when we want to find inspiration or solve a problem. We cannot really access our inspiration, creativity, and enthusiasm from this lower place on the Ladder of Consciousness.

We first need to move higher up on the Ladder of Consciousness before we would be able to access things like imagination, inspiration, creativity, vitality, energy, enthusiasm, joy, humour, compassion, aliveness. What you might not be aware of, is that you have far more control over your state of mind and mood than you might realise. Our Higher Self is pure joy, creativity, energy, and inspiration and it’s our responsibility to do our best to get ourselves higher up the Ladder of Consciousness.

You might be wondering how you might do that? Well, it starts with slowing down to notice that you are in fact lower on the Ladder of Consciousness, and showing yourself compassion for being there. You see, it’s not “wrong” to be in a lower space energetically. It’s part of the natural ebb and flow of life, really. We are not always going to be in our highest, most inspired self. We need to be grateful for our “good” (rather high) days and graceful with ourselves on our “bad” (rather low) days. Compassion and grace are how we start to move our energy.

Steve shares three other things that he has found very helpful in lifting our energy. He uses the acronym LSD to share the three things that he has found to be hugely helpful in moving our energy higher up on the Ladder of Consciousness. L is for laughter. S is for singing. D is for dancing. Laughter, singing, and dancing help us raise our energy. You cannot be low on the Ladder of Consciousness when you are laughing, singing, or dancing. Try it.

Brené Brown discovered something similar in her work. In her book, The Gifts of Imperfection, she shares one of the ways we can release fear and the need to always be in control, is to embrace laughter, singing, and dancing. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that both Steve Chandler and Brené Brown have made the same discovery. When I look at my children, these three things – laughter, singing, and dancing – come so naturally to them. They are always doing one or all three of these things, and they find themselves in a state of joy more often than not as a result. My sense is that these three things were gifted to us as short cuts to our Higher Selves. They are a reminder of the joy that is right here, if we stop taking ourselves so seriously.

And interestingly, our culture shuns these very things by calling them “frivolous time-wasters”. We are taught to move away from play, and we forget that play is our birth right. Play is how we connect with our Higher Selves and get ourselves higher up on the Ladder of Consciousness.

So, what did I do when my coach requested that I get myself back into my window of tolerance? I prioritised rest, play, laughter, music, and dancing. I paused on everything that wasn’t essential, and gave myself the gift of rest and play. What was the impact of that? Within a three or four days, I was back into a higher level of consciousness – i.e., I was higher up on the Ladder of Consciousness – and I could re-engage with my work and my clients in a different way.

Now, sometimes, when we are out of practice, or we have not allowed ourselves to rest and play for many years, then it can take longer than just a few days to move our state of wellbeing. You see, play and rest, are lost skills in our manic society, and we need to relearn them.

So, dear reader, how often do you find yourself in higher states of being – i.e., higher up on the Ladder of Consciousness? How often do you make space in your calendar for rest and play? When last did you laugh so much that your belly hurt? When last did you sing to one of your favourite songs, or danced like no-one was watching? When last did you allow yourself to simply be without feeling the need to rush to get something done? When last did you check in with the part of you that feels inspired, alive, passionate, joyful, and connected to self and to Life?

If you connect to that part of yourself often, let me know what you do to get yourself higher up on the Ladder of Consciousness? What do you find most supportive to you in connecting with your true joy and authenticity? And if it’s been a while, reach out and let me know. Let’s talk about what is getting in the way of you giving yourself permission to rest and play?