If being fully honest with myself (and all of you reading this), I actually remember very little of that fateful day in April.

It was a whirlwind of emotion, eye opening conversation and incredible healing.

I had no idea exactly how much healing I received that day though until

now simply because I am no longer who I was that day. The walls around my heart, the layers of hurt, the trauma I once endured have all but left me… I react differently, I speak differently, I enjoy doing completely different things and I love myself now. True love, not the ego based fear type love but true self love now. Things that I once allowed in my life no longer have any place, fear is falling away a layer at a time and I’ve learned to love others ONLY because I’ve learned to love myself.

The journey we are on is for life, there will always be an uncomfortable feeling, there will always be a layer of fear to look at, it comes full circle to bring about a deeper understanding. I learn more each day what self love really looks like…The rest days where you snuggle up in a blanket with your favourite show on, the days where you take a nap in the middle of the day because that’s what the body is asking for and especially the days that you walk away from the daily grind to go and thoroughly enjoy the outdoors, walking, listening, breathing and fully connecting to the intricate frequency that is Gaia.

As a society we have been taught to push through until we collapse or become filled with dis-ease. Today I have a solid self care game but it wasn’t always the case. I pushed, sometimes working 2 jobs and literally burning the candle at both ends leaving me exhausted and irritable and yet I still pushed. Work ethic has been deeply ingrained which is a beautiful thing HOWEVER there always has to be balance. You know that old saying nothing comes for free? How incredibly true that is, how can we continue to give from an empty cup, we are made of energy, it’s our molecular makeup right so here we are, rushing around giving our very essence (energy) to our jobs, our family, our friends and the countless people we encounter daily only we’re not giving back to ourselves!

This is the basis of dis-ease!

We forget to breathe, we forget that the food we put into our bodies is of incredible importance, we forget or are unable to make time for exercise and we rarely sleep because the list is still running in our minds when we lay down at night. We are creating our own suffering by forgetting that we too matter. We need sleep, we need healthy fuel for our bodies, we need connection with like-minded individuals, we need to play sometimes, we need connection with nature and we need exercise.

My big takeaway from that day in April 2017 was self-care. That’s the day I remembered that I matter.

Now I’m not saying it’s easy to incorporate self-care into an already jammed schedule HOWEVER once it’s made a priority in your life the change in how you feel each day is enough to continue the regime. Level 1 almost forced me to take time for myself namely because there’s a 21 day integration, you provide yourself with daily Self Reiki. I did mine each night before going to sleep for the night, I would turn on the meditation and place my hands where guided, best part is even if you fall asleep it’s still flowing because Reiki goes where it’s needed. This was the first time in years that I was sleeping full night’s… I was waking feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day. This small act of daily Self love had given me back my sleep, which is where our body repairs itself, our mind quiets and our body settles into the parasympathetic state (rejuvenation and healing) for often the only time during the day.

We’ll discuss in further detail sympathetic and parasympathetic later on down the road as we move further into all Reiki has brought into my life so far!