Nourish
“My whole teaching is simply this: accept yourself, love yourself,
worship yourself, celebrate yourself.”
—osho
The previous steps to strengthen your inner connection—breathe, surrender, connect, trust, and honor—form the complete process. You’ve already gone wild and deep. You’ve journeyed inward and discovered your truth. If you’ve followed your intuition, you’ve trusted it, you’ve acted on it, and you now know how powerful you are. But as with everything in life, if you don’t nourish it, it can’t thrive. If you want to live as a sacred, self-aware creature to the best of your ability and reach your highest potential, you need to take care of you. Nourishment in any form will support the vibrant energy that weaves through all you do. Here we’ll explore what it looks like to love and care for all of you.
Intuitively Thriving
When you’re feeling healthy, clear, and calm, inner wisdom shines through you. Nourishing yourself without hesitation or guilt creates a foundation for genuinely abundant health and well-being.
As you look within for all the ways your being craves nourishment, you may discover that your thoughts need a little more love, your emotions are yearning to be released, your body needs different care, your energy wants to be healed, your chakras could do with some therapy, your cycles have so much to teach you, your mind is dreaming of connecting with a like-minded community, your inner child needs a hug, or your heart is craving a deeper love with your partner. That’s what this final chapter is all about: giving your whole being all that you crave, desire, and need.
If the healing you require seems difficult, impossible, or too much for you to do alone, perhaps it’s time to seek help. Find a practitioner, healer, coach, friend, or group who can hold space, inspire, and support you through the process.
Create as much time as possible each day for nourishment. Put it at the top of your to-do list. Self-care is not something you earn; it’s something you prioritize. Nourishment is the spine of any spiritual life, and you simply cannot live or give from an empty chalice.
The Spark of Joy Within
Positive thoughts from loving intentions bring so much ease and depth into conscious living, healing, and growth. Whenever I find myself avoiding self-care, I come back to the story I’m telling myself around the avoidance of such rituals. I always find there’s an element of fear woven into the story that needs to be unpicked and replaced with faith and love. Unpick and weave. Unpick and weave. A lifelong process.
If I’m sleeping in day after day, it’s often due to a fear of not getting enough sleep. When I replace this with faith that I’ll always have enough, I can rise early with ease, which creates time and space for a nourishing routine. If I’m avoiding exercise, it’s usually because of a fear of feeling exhausted in the midst of an otherwise overwhelming week. When I replace this with faith that my body knows the best type of exercise to fuel me with energy and health each day, then I’m able to move more, whether it’s a dance session at home or a walk along the beach.
Notice the fear, embrace it, show yourself compassion, and then create space to set a more loving intention. Come back to why you love to be nourished and how it makes you feel. One self-loving thought can wildly alter the way you create and experience your day.
Charge your positive thoughts with repetition and embodiment. Repetition gives thoughts a deeper influence on your mind by expanding them into your subconscious. Embodiment of optimism is when the body agrees with the thoughts and acts as though they are real. When you truly believe all the way through your being that you are worthy of the positive thoughts that you think, then you will begin to swiftly manifest all the goodness of your thoughts.
A positive attitude shift will expand your sense of self and cause you to act according to your highest good. These soulful actions become nurturing habits and rituals. Eventually these rituals will shape your life and have a deep impact on your unconscious beliefs and values, which drive everything you do. This is a daily process of self-love and self-belief. This is how you change your life.
Wake up in gratitude. Find within you a spark of joy, humility, connection, or wonder at the dawn of your day, then watch your entire day unfold with more of the same.
Make it a priority in your life to write positive affirmations, set powerful intentions, dip your pen into a gratitude journal, speak kindly, and otherwise use words for your full, creative, and compassionate expression.
Don’t compare your self-care journey with others’. What you need today is different from what everyone else needs. What is easy for others may be difficult for you. Stay on your path, honor your needs, and create intentions from where you can bloom wildly.
• Ritual •
Everyday Self-Love Affirmations
Affirmations are one of my favorite ways of bringing a specific flavor of positivity into my life. I write affirmations in the first person (I, me, my) and always with positive words that succinctly encapsulate how I want to feel. I aim for truth and beauty, but never perfection. Say them out loud with one hand on your heart to embody the words, as though you can feel the energy of them. The more you dismiss the words as though you’re “not there yet” or “not worthy of that feeling,” the less impact they will have. Do your best to accept and embrace them with an open heart instead.
Here are some nourishing affirmations for you to try on, or use them to write your own:
• I am wonderfully, completely, and perfectly whole.
• My truth is a valuable light that shines freely.
• I let love guide my healing journey.
• I am open to experiencing joyful well-being every day.
• I live and breathe as one with humanity.
• I respect and honor myself as a worthy and successful individual.
• My talents come to life with every expression of creativity.
• I am gratefully responsible for my thoughts, words, and actions.
Daydream Often and Well
There has not been a single day in my life when I haven’t indulged in the beautiful act of daydreaming. Daydreaming is how I get in touch with what I truly desire underneath all the expectations, “shoulds,” and to-do lists. Daydreaming is how I prepare for the future with a hopeful heart.
I consider daydreaming to be valuable and nourishing. Daydreaming helps me live in a blissful state, even if just for a moment, to forget the concerns of daily life, to tune in to what brings me joy, to imagine a future that I can grow into, and to remind myself of the incredible possibilities that are available to me.
It sounds contrary to mindfulness, but as long as you’re not dreaming to procrastinate or run away from your current reality, then I wholeheartedly believe it’s good for your Soul.
I keep my daydreaming as close to reality as possible. I don’t daydream about doing something that I have no desire to do or being someone I don’t want to be. I let these accessible ideas flow so they can show me the potential of where I may go.
Daydreams inspire and excite me, and often the things I’m daydreaming about come to fruition; perhaps it’s my heart’s way of designing my life.
Keep your daydreams positive; use them to tell the universe about your ideal life. Anything is possible, so dream often and well. Write down your daydreams as well as your night dreams in a journal if that feels exciting to you; this can bring them to life even more tangibly. Use your conscious and unconscious dream states to understand yourself in a new way. Daydreaming is a subtle yet potent way to access your inner wisdom, as you can open your inner and outer senses in this state and allow a blissful future to find you.
Freely Expressed Emotions
Emotions are physical reactions to the environment around you; feelings are the thoughts you associate with these emotions. Emotions are the colors created by your heart, and they affect everything you feel, think, say, and do. Although they are not meant to be controlled, you are able to witness, understand, surrender, and heal your emotions more than you can imagine. Emotions create a flow of wellness, balance, and nurtured fluidity through your entire being.
When you’re conscious about how you’re reacting to your emotions, they become less overwhelming and more of an insight into how you’re experiencing the world. Your emotions are constantly informing you from your heart and your gut, so when you tune in to the raw emotion—rather than the feeling—you are able to receive so much wisdom.
I don’t expect all my emotions to feel good or to bring positive feelings into my world, but I know that they all have a reason for being present and they are each a gift, a portal, and a path to learning about myself on a deeper level.
Some emotions need to be expressed openly and freely, while others need a safe place to land, but usually I simply and patiently let them move through me without resisting difficult ones or attempting to hold on to the pleasant ones. Emotions themselves aren’t painful; it’s the resistance to or the repression of them that can be uncomfortable. Thoughts that we associate with difficult emotions can cause pain in the moment and also in the future when that emotion comes again and triggers a whole realm of unconscious memories. It sounds simple, but it works: let them flow, let them all flow.
Your inner landscape is a jungle of all kinds of emotions. When you remain mindful in the midst of any strong emotion rising, you can accept it for what it is, allow it to unfold in your being, and take on the insight it has for you. Then just let it go. This is powerfully high-vibrational living. When you notice the emotion as a part of you that is under your guidance, then you’ll experience it more freely and gracefully. When you see the potential for each emotion rather than repressing or limiting it with stories, judgments, and unconscious blocks, then your energy will expand to make room for whatever needs to move through you.
Here are a few ways you can express and nourish your wild emotional state:
• Love who you are, love everything about you, and don’t deny any emotions that surface.
• Speak your truth, your whole truth, in a way that empowers you and feels expansive.
• Find healthy ways to let the lid off your powerful emotions.
• Look underneath strong emotions to see what’s really going on, take time to journal with them, and uncover their gifts.
• Move your body every day, either through exercise, stretching, or dance, to let energy move through you (after all, emotions are energy in motion).
• Decide how you want to feel, and make this choice on a regular basis, but not at the expense of emotions that surface organically.
When you gently and consciously—but not obsessively—look into and under your precious emotions, you are invited inside into a sacred place that is so richly you, a reservoir overflowing with precious jewels. You have nothing to fear here in your heart. Dive deep, and you will be rewarded for your courage, curiosity, and self-acceptance with wisdom and insight. Self-awareness is a wild kaleidoscope of colorful expressions within to be nourished.
When you take the time to nourish and become intimate and accepting of your inner emotional world, you’ll reap the benefits that come with this level of healing, such as peace, contentment, and deep joy.
To discover the source of your emotions is to feel real connection and understanding. To accept your emotions is to accept yourself. To express your emotions is to allow yourself the fullness of life. Getting to know yourself through your emotions helps you feel tangibly more in touch with yourself. This will inevitably lead to a more abundant and accessible awareness.
When you learn the art of dancing with your emotions and courageously loving yourself the whole way, then the undercurrent of peace becomes stronger and joy is only a smile away.
• Practice •
Datebooks and diaries are practical portals into a more vibrant life full of self-care. It doesn’t take long to plan your nourishment. Create space each day for the small acts of nourishment that you can do for yourself that make you happy and relaxed, and plan ahead for the bigger things, like appointments for massages, movie dates, nature hikes, and healing sessions. Make yourself your priority when planning ahead for your week and let your heart guide you toward the nourishment that’s just right for you.
What self-care will you prioritize this week? Will you take yourself out for nature walks or book a massage? Will you take more breaks from work and social media? Will you begin a new ritual of self-care—such as self-massage or yoga—in the morning or evening?
What is your intention for this day, this month, and this year? How do you wish to feel today? How would you like the week ahead to look? What about the year ahead excites your Soul?
If you could write one affirmation that encapsulated your dreams for the month ahead, what would it be? How would you describe who you are becoming?
When was the last time you daydreamed? How does it feel for you to daydream? What do you dream about?
What emotions have been the strongest today? How did you feel, and how did you express and release them? How did you feel after you surrendered the heavy emotion?
Reach into Your Shadow
Every bright light casts a shadow; it’s a natural part of being a shiny Soul. Everything in your shadow is simply a part of you that you’ve forgotten, repressed, hidden, or denied. You’re not meant to deny any part of you, but you were inevitably taught to do so as a child. That’s why it’s so important to consciously embrace and understand your shadow as a real part of you. Without getting to know these aspects and giving them some air, they’ll sit in the dark depths of your unconscious mind, corrupting your joy, impeding your growth, and tearing at your instinct’s foundation. Knowing the deepest and darkest parts of you might feel strange at first, but these are some of the most important parts of you that require nourishment. If you don’t nourish all of you, then you’re hiding what you’re ashamed of. Shame is a low-vibrating energy that will hinder you from ever reaching your full potential. Know and love all of you. It’s as simple and as difficult as that.
The first step with shadow work is curiosity with the intention of loving healing. Entering the shadow with fear or denial won’t help you on your path, so be sure to check in with your motivation before you dive deep. What you discover may cause your ego to flare up in the hope of blaming, judging, or getting angry at people who have caused you to deny parts of you or stay small. Go in with love; let the ego be quiet for a moment.
With a compassionate and honest heart, take out your journal and lay your emotions out in full. Without editing, judging, ignoring, or making up stories, take your time with the questions below. This is important work that will have beneficial and lasting effects throughout your entire life. Nourishing the shadow will cause your Soul to shine brighter than ever, create a more grounded and loving instinct, and put you more in touch with your intuitive heart. Anytime you sense your shadow self in everyday life, embrace whatever comes up for you and gently notice why negative emotions persist. Often, they’re trying to heal your past and your instinct, for it is an unseen, camouflaged shadow that weighs down your instinctual response with fear. Take your time with this valuable work, and honor yourself for your strength and courage in stepping into and nourishing your shadow.
• Practice •
Personally, I’ve discovered a lot about my shadow that wasn’t at all as dark or traumatic as I thought it would be. Often, I simply heard my inner child quietly asking for a hug, for acknowledgment, or for reassurance that everything was okay. If the tears come, let them. Keep breathing deeply and let love into all the spaces of your being. You are completely safe here in your own transformation.
What feelings have been present lately that have made you uncomfortable? Where do you think they may have come from originally? What are they hoping to show you?
What parts of your personality do you consider unacceptable? What do you not like showing to other people? Where did the belief that these parts of you are shameful originate?
In what ways do you believe you are not good enough, worthy enough, or loveable enough? Where did these stories begin?
Whom do you need to forgive from your past? Write them a letter and safely burn it when you’re finished. Let out all of your feelings, whether positive or negative, and be completely honest. Write until you feel a shift in your heart.
How is your inner child still afraid, lost, vulnerable, or sad? Write them a letter expressing how safe and loved they are. Tell them it’s not their fault that difficulties occurred and reassure them that you’ll sit with them as long as they need you. You may want to try this in a meditation. Imagine the adult, present-day version of you sitting with you as a child. Talk to your inner child and appreciate whatever response you receive. If you don’t receive words from them, talk to them with reassuring words instead. Hug your inner child in your mind’s eye and let them melt into your body with love.
Spend time freewriting or sitting in meditation as you ponder these questions. Allow messages from your shadow to flow without hesitation. Feel whatever you need to feel, allow it to pass through you, and when you’re complete, give thanks. There are many spiritual coaches who can help you heal your shadow if you feel that you’re not able to do this yourself.
Cherish Your Temple
Your inner wisdom is constantly giving you advice on all matters, great and small, especially on how to look after the temple of your body. Looking after bodies is big business. There are millions of teachers, healers, coaches, experts, gurus, trainers, and companies hoping that you’ll give them your money, take their advice, buy their products, like their page, read their book, and follow their path. But you are the only one who knows what’s good for your body.
You know what food and beverages truly benefit you. You know what exercise energizes, stretches, and heals. You know what self-care is imperative for your well-being. You know what kind of connection with nature you need. You know what health professionals have your best interest at heart. You know what beauty and skincare products are genuinely kind to your health and to Mother Earth. You know what conscious habits are worth making time for. You know what household products are natural and not draining your body’s good health.
You know all of this because your inner wisdom has been telling you all along.
I used to feel uneasy using toxic makeup products, so I ditched them. I didn’t get good vibes (or advice) from my old doctor, so I found a new one. I craved a fun range of exercise ideas to get my body moving, so I joined a gym for a year. I know how healing a bath is, so I make a decadent weekly ritual of it. I feel happiest at the beach, so I moved close to one.
I do what feels good and true for the sake of a long and happy life. And I’m not afraid to change my mind when I learn more, as I grow more, as my intuition becomes stronger, and when I need to pivot along my path.
If you’re not sure what step to take, grab two options. Place them in front of you (or write them down if you need to) and tune in to each of them with your energy. Take note of how they make you feel. Honor that feeling and choose what feels expansive. One of them might start to sparkle, shine, pulsate, or give you tingles. The other one might feel awkward, uncomfortable, unsure, or constricted. If you don’t get a clear answer, try the muscle testing process mentioned earlier in this book.
Be patient and purposeful in all that you do to take care of yourself. When you cultivate a strong knowing around what feels right for you and what doesn’t, you’ll carry this with you everywhere you go. This is the whole point of intuitive living—to hold on to this connection in the world and use it for your highest benefit.
A few simple but often forgotten ideas
to kick-start a wave of body love:
• Incorporate a soulful daily ritual into your morning shower, such as massaging your heart center in a clockwise motion with a gentle scrub, imagining the water to be healing white light filling you from your crown chakra, or humming a sweet tune to connect to your belly and lift your spirit.
• Use essential oils with warm jojoba oil to massage into your body post-shower.
• Stretch for a few minutes in the morning. Make up your own yoga practice or move your body in a way that feels good and easy.
• Lie belly to belly with Mother Earth and let her physically ground your body while balancing your emotions and spirit.
• Walk barefoot through sand, grass, dirt, or on rocks.
• Tell your body every day how much you love it and why. Be generous and specific.
• Purchase natural face and body products and bless them as you use them.
• Drink plenty of filtered water every day.
• Honor your body’s true whole-food cravings.
When it comes to nourishment, your instinct is always guiding you away from what isn’t best for you, your intuition is nudging you toward what is most aligned, and your insight is bringing in new ideas for holistic wellness that you may not have tried before. Stay open to the guidance.
Revive Your Energy
The energy in and around you will affect everything in your life, from your thoughts and emotions to your body, relationships, and level of vitality. Likewise, everything in your life may affect the energy in and around you.
It’s up to you to create, nourish, and protect your precious energy and to only welcome in energy from others and your environment that is nourishing for you.
Energy is everything.
Our thoughts, emotions, words, and actions will greatly impact the energy in and around us. Even our densely physical body is pure energy. The energy that you influence in your field comes back to you in time—what you give, you receive. It’s an energetic cycle that keeps on moving, changing, transforming, and affecting.
My favorite energetic quick fix is a meditation and a glass of water. No kidding. A ten-minute meditation in which I ground my instinctive/gut energy, open my heart/intuitive space, clear my third eye to gain valuable insight, and connect to Source is so completely healing to me. When I take time to visualize fluid alignment in my being, my energy responds to that positively and powerfully.
Ground, open, clear, and connect.
Your energy is in everything you do, and people will feel what you feel. When your heart is singing, expect compliments and random smiles. When you pour love into all you do, love comes back to hold you close. Believe in yourself and your purpose as your energy is enhanced by your beliefs, one way or another.
• Ritual •
Here are a few ways to refresh your energy when you’re feeling low, tired, or stuck. Quite often, it doesn’t take much to turn your thoughts around, move your body, or try something new to shift your energy. Try these to see how they feel.
1. Meditate in the morning for five minutes, breathing deeply into your belly through your nose and completely out of your whole body through your nose or mouth. Do this without pausing; create a cyclical flow to your breathwork.
2. Set an intention each morning; choose a love-based, high-
energy feeling that you would like to feel throughout your day. Write it down somewhere noticeable so that it can inspire you.
3. Set into place nonnegotiable ways of nurturing your physical energy each day, such as using essential oils, bending into yoga poses, sipping herbal teas, and choosing healthy snacks.
4. Say a little prayer for Great Spirit to stay close and shower you with miracles and clarity.
5. Hug a tree, dip your body in the ocean, or inhale a flower’s beauty.
6. Look up at the sky for a few minutes and wonder with a smile at the mystery and cosmic wilderness of the universe.
As you heal yourself, you find yourself. Your inner wisdom cannot bloom if your energy is blocked, as instinctive, intuitive, and insightful wisdom is a continuous flow of guidance as energy.
Colorful Chakra Care
Chakras are a curious way of nourishing, healing, and understanding yourself better. When you’re feeling out of balance and you can identify which chakra needs some self-care (either through the descriptions in Chapter 3 or by meditating on your inner wisdom), try these ideas:
• Wear the specific chakra color on your clothes, accessories, or on something you’re carrying; eat foods of a similar color or place matching crystals nearby.
• Say out loud the positive affirmations (provided with the chakra descriptions in Chapter 3) that balance what’s not working and reinforce what you want. For example, if you want to clear your throat chakra, try, “I express my truth every day with grace and clarity.” If you want to open your crown chakra, say, “I am open to receiving wisdom and golden light from the highest dimensions.” Say the affirmation consistently until you feel a shift.
• Lie down somewhere quiet and gently breathe into the chakra that needs healing, flooding the area with sparkly white light, feeling it enlarge and brighten with each breath until it is slightly wider than your body.
• Dance intuitively to music or do some intuitive flow yoga to allow healing energy to move through you. Wear and think of the color as you do so, or simply state an intention for healing to move through all chakras.
• Sit or lie down somewhere quiet with your eyes closed, imagining each chakra in your mind’s eye or placing one hand over the area of your body where the chakra would be. Trust the insight you receive as you move slowly up each chakra from root to crown.
Nurturing Cycles and Inner Flow
Your cycles are a miraculous reflection of the cycles of the universe. Birth and death, fertility and creativity, love and loss, pain and ecstasy, sickness and healing, surrender and control. Your local community, the seasons, sunrise and sunset, moon cycles, stars, planets, and cosmic guides all have a cyclical nature to them. There are cycles within and around everything, guiding and governing, coming and going, moving and flowing according to divine timing and will.
Women and men both have remarkably potent cycles in their lives due to the currents of hormones in their bodies. Hormones fluctuate every hour, day, month, and season, putting us emotionally and energetically in touch with the seasons, elements, our local communities, our food, and the weather. Women bleed and ovulate once a month during their fertile years; they are the creators of the next generation—women who aren’t mothers are still part of this, birthing, creating, and nurturing in countless ways. Women are also death’s closest witness, as they make up the majority of midwives, nurses, and caretakers of the elderly.
Celebrating and honoring each internal and external cycle is a powerfully healing way to connect to Mother Earth, our bodies, and our inner wisdom. With honest acceptance and presence comes empowerment—to look after ourselves and our planet—and a deep-rooted sense of feeling and flow.
When you’re eating imported food that doesn’t align with the current season, you’re blocking flow. When you’re a bleeding woman or an exhausted man sweating it out at the gym, you’re likely in pain or disconnected from your body, which will block flow. When you’re forcing yourself to hustle when you genuinely need to rest, you’re blocking the flow of healing.
When you tune in to the moon’s energies and allow her to shine guidance on your rhythm, you find flow. When you honor what your body requires as it cycles through the day, you find flow. When you allow emotions to move like water, you find flow. When you nourish yourself in these ways and find flow, you’ll feel the current of your intuition course within.
• Ritual •
Here are some dynamic ways to love and learn more about the cosmos around and within you. Through these rituals, you will come to know your inner cycles more intimately, which is such an empowered way of living with self-awareness. Go with what intuitively feels good.
Keep a diary of your personal monthly cycle. Note how you feel each day, what foods you crave, what healing feels good, when your energy peaks, when you long for company, and when you need to rest solo. When you plan your life and business around your cycle, you will experience greater flow and ease. If you’re a man or a woman who doesn’t bleed, you’ll still find deeper awareness and healing when you connect with how you feel throughout each month.
Connect with the moon. There are eight main rotations of the moon called lunar phases. Tune in to them intuitively or through a lunar calendar. Get inspired. Get curious. And most powerfully, get to know how you feel on each new and full moon. The moon is one of nature’s great guides; she’s there as a beacon for you to understand yourself better throughout each cycle.
Look to the stars. Astrology is a never-ending wonder of information and guidance. Each phase feels different and has many shades of guidance that come with it. Find an astrology calendar or website that you can observe, and, as always, make sure your own inner universe and feelings are the most important guidance for you, above what anyone else says about the stars.
Watch nature’s unfolding. The seasons influence how you feel, what you eat, and what kind of movement you desire. When you attune your heart to nature’s rhythm by spending time outside, by eating intuitively what your body is craving, by living in awe at the weather, by letting your body move as it wants to, you are in flow with nature and with the wildest parts of yourself.
Let go of expectations. When you expect things to be a particular way or have a specific outcome, you see the world as fixed and rigid when it’s anything but. When you find peace within the highs and lows, pain and ecstasy, love and loss, when you cease clinging to the high ideals of perfection and accept what is, you align with flow and unearth the gifts of light tucked into the darkest and most unexpected moments.
Stay fluid with your creativity. Some days you may feel like the fullest, most inspired poet, artist, designer, architect, engineer, dancer, teacher, healer, or mystic. Other days you may feel empty, with nothing to give. This is the cycle of creativity. Do your best to create when you feel aligned to the source of your creativity and to rest and attend to other things when you feel the natural disconnect or pull-away. You simply cannot birth brilliance every single day.
See death as it truly is … a transition, not an ending. For there is no real death. Your Soul—and the Soul of every living thing—lives forever. We birth, we grow, and we transition into a different form again and again. Such is the nature and wonder of our Soul’s journey.
Divine timing is nonlinear, fluid, and flawless. Scheduling in earth time can be helpful, but all too often clock time can be seductive. The calendar year, your diary, alarm clocks, meetings, expectations, and appointments are all so appealing. When your life is ruled by the dictation of the ever-ticking clock, your inner cycle may be largely ignored because it doesn’t “fit in” with the unnatural rhythm of clock time. When you move to the pulse of your body, you live in alignment with nature’s cosmic and organic timing.
Wake with the sun. Rest with the night. Learn to say no. Be brave and say yes when your Soul is ready. Be as flexible as possible. Eat when you’re hungry. Nap when you need to. Indulge in yourself and find your flow. Get to know yourself on this deeply intricate level. Get to love everything that you see. Nourish yourself in every imaginable way.
Creating Your Kind of Community
You are the founder and foundation of your community. Creating a community of joy and support is more than just the loveliest feeling in the world, it’s holistic and wholehearted nourishment all around you. But it all starts with you. You are the center of your web, and you get to weave it according to your inner rhythm and needs. Get to know your neighbors. Say hi to the people who work nearby. Offer your mail carrier cold water on a hot day. Wave to the kids who live in your street. Smile at strangers. Acknowledge the homeless. Volunteer at a local shelter or soup kitchen. Not for what they can give back to you, but for the simple nourishment that comes with looking after others.
There are no rules to connect with your community. Do it your way. Extend your heart outward from where you live in a way that feels nourishing, not depleting. Mostly, spread kindness.
We are all connected, especially when we live close to others. It doesn’t mean you have to make contact with people who don’t feel good. It doesn’t mean you have to take criticism from people who are disrespectful. It just means that there are people out there who could benefit from your light. Connecting with a bunch of collective Souls that you can count on for various roles is a tangible way of growing roots. Even if you only live in one place for six months, having roots for a short period is nourishing for your adventurous energy.
There are many ways to reach out; choose the ways that light up your heart. Try a community class (learning or teaching), soulful circles, dog walking, visiting local fairs and garage sales, volunteering at schools, shopping at food markets, holding your own creative stall at a regular market, or looking after kids that live close by. Join or create a Facebook group where anyone can reach out and connect.
The more grounded, safe, and appreciated you feel in your hometown, the more secure your instinct will feel. A secure instinct creates space for a flourishing intuition, a powerful ability to receive insights, and a life of sublime self-awareness. When you feel supported by a group of locals who genuinely have your back, you move beyond surviving and start truly thriving. As you nourish others, you feel nourished yourself, even when you don’t ask for anything in return. You matter to so many. When you realize this, your heartspace opens further and expands the energy around it, giving and receiving love and compassion every day. You also gain a grassroots element to your purpose, deepening a sense of meaning in every area of your life.
I’ve lived in nine areas of five different cities around the world, spreading roots into each of these communities. As a child, I didn’t ever want to leave once I had made close friends, but moving countries a few times gave me faith that wherever I landed, I would be able to meet like-minded people and still keep in touch with those I had left behind.
This has been a huge blessing to me as I settle in my new hometown of Byron Bay. Although I miss my Sydney friends every day, I trust that this place is meant to be home for now. As we slowly cultivate a cherished and soulful community around us, we are mindful of bringing in people to our home and our hearts who feel aligned, and are committed to sharing our love and light openly with everyone we meet. Creating a conscious community is a circle of nourishment. Hugs when you need them, conversations that awaken you, meals for hard times, assistance with kids or pets, and the communal fire that burns bright for everyone.
Community is precious. Take care of yours.
Healing Family Dynamics
Families are complicated, unpredictable, messy, and completely unique to all of us. Each member of our family has the ability to impact our health in countless ways. I believe true nourishment must take into consideration all our relationships. Whether we rely on a family member too much for feelings of safety, security, or happiness, or if a family member is somehow causing us pain or unease, these are attachments that need to be let go of and connections that need healing.
Self-awareness means looking after ourselves in every way that our inner wisdom guides us to. It means paying attention to the relationships around us and noting honestly if they are nourishing or not. Creating space between yourself and a family member doesn’t mean cutting them out of your life; it may mean having a difficult conversation with them to clear the energy between you, it could mean energy healing or visualization to heal old upsets or trauma, or it could mean disconnecting from them on social media and only connecting in real life when you feel ready to do so.
Family members teach us, inspire us, challenge us, and shape us in endless ways. Long ago when I started out on my personal path of self-awareness, I learned three things that shaped the way I see my family and helped me heal old wounds.
1. You choose your close family before you incarnate into a physical body.
2. Each family member has a task to do to help your Soul grow.
3. Your parents did the best job they knew how to with what they had.
We choose our family because we believe that they will give us the best chance at achieving what we want to achieve for our Soul. We don’t choose to be abused or neglected—this is not our fault on any level, but we choose the people we are related to.
When I began to see my family as my greatest teachers, as the people who helped shape me—intentionally or otherwise—to be the beautiful person I am today, I took back my power and became grateful for my life and the family I am surrounded with. If I was ever to hold on to resentment, anger, jealousy, bitterness, guilt, or shame in relation to my childhood and family, then I would hold myself back from being completely nourished, healed, aware, and alive. A big part of nourishing my well-being is to forgive, love, and surrender who my family members are and all that they’ve done. They are so much more than their “wrongs.” To hold on to negative feelings or attachments is to profoundly impede my health and the possibility of having a great relationship with them.
My family taught me to be an honest, independent, kind, intelligent, hilarious, creative, musical, hard-working, spiritual, and loving human being. Was it all easy? No. Am I perfect just the way I am today because of their devotion, love, integrity, sacrifice, generosity, and mistakes? Absolutely.
As a parent, I forgive myself more easily because I know I’m doing my best every day. Sometimes I yell. Sometimes I blame. Sometimes I eat their chocolate. But I’m healing, growing, and expanding my consciousness thanks to these children I’ve been blessed with. It’s not easy creating, birthing, nourishing, raising, teaching, and loving a little human. It’s wild. But if I can’t nourish myself with the same devotion that I nourish my family with, I’m lacking in complete self-care.
However your family sits in your life right now, they are there because you called them in. They are there for a reason. Stop trying to forgive them and just forgive. You don’t have to tell them, and it will free your heart. Don’t spend time with people you don’t want to be with just because they’re family. Love them all anyway. Anything else will impact your health and well-being and get you stuck in a whirlpool of heartache. If you can, tell them you love them as often as possible.
Give up your attachments to all the members of your family. Let them be who they are. Don’t expect anything from them. Gently peel your energy away from them until they don’t impact your thoughts and emotions anymore. Get help to heal family issues and don’t give yourself a hard time if it takes many therapy sessions and energy healings to feel the way you desire to feel. It’s all necessary nourishment along your path.
If there’s one way you can heal your family today, take a moment now or just before sleep to imagine all your family members together. Wrap them up in a soft pink, loving light. Send them all unconditional love, and feel the unconditional love come back to you from their Souls. Keep doing this until you feel the lightness of love all the way through your being.
Conscious Love
All your relationships need nourishing, especially your closest partnership. To love someone who understands and cherishes you for all of who you are is a blessing. Never let someone tear you down, abuse you, undermine you, rob you of your peace, or take you for granted. Walk away when your instinct urges you to do so. There is no shame in leaving.
Look after yourself first in any close relationship. Love yourself hard, and you will never beg for love for the rest of your days. Cherish yourself, tell yourself that you’re beautiful every day, take yourself out for dates, and give yourself plenty of hugs. Nourish yourself wholeheartedly, because no one else can give you what you’re not already accepting from yourself.
When you can fulfill your cravings on your own, you’ll find the weight of your relationship so much lighter, and so will your partner. Of course, there will still be challenging and uncomfortable moments, as every partnership is about growth, but with self-care, you will bring a deeper level of empowerment and compassion to the union.
Embrace change and growth within yourself and your partner. Be patient with them, support them through their transformation, and love them unconditionally.
Love your body and let it be loved. Let your physical senses find pleasure every day. Relish your nakedness. Make love without shame or guilt, but rather with pure connectedness, consciousness, and curiosity. Laugh at the awkwardness that often accompanies sex and be honest about your feelings, pleasures, and boundaries.
When the going gets really tough, when arguments are more common than breakfast, when you cease to see their humanness as beautiful, consider whether a relationship counselor or energy healer would be of benefit.
Spend time alone. Revel in the beauty of your own presence. Use moments of stillness to open up to your intuition, and let the messages guide your relationship. When in doubt, ask yourself, What would unconditional love do?
Nourish Your Spirit
Your unique spirit is the expression of your Soul, the lifeforce of your eternal self. Consciously tune in to your essence and energy daily, hourly, or as often as you can until you merge with this sensation and live from this place, until you are aligned with your true self in everything that you do. As you strive—with grace and ease—to live aligned, you will be one with your inner wisdom, one with Source energy, and one with your brothers and sisters, animals, and nature.
Breathwork is a powerful and pure way to feel and heal your body, your past, your traumas, and your emotions. Breathwork can be simple and blissful or intense and dynamic. There are many different types of therapeutic breathwork that you can learn online or from a practitioner––one-on-one or in a group––to consciously work with your unseen spirit. Your breath and spirit are vehicles to surrender, remedy, and salve the wholeness of you. And to bliss, always bliss.
As we complete this cycle of six steps, we come back full circle to the breath. Keep breathing deeply. Feel into your spirit through your breath each day.
Your spirit is exceptionally precious. Admire and nurture it accordingly.