Friday, November 21, 2014

delightfully quirky

Today I was on a walk with the other two women in my singing group Spirit Song. We get together once a season to meditate, chant and share. Today we added a walk to our time together. All three of us are therapists so we can support each other personally and professionally. We have been meeting for four years. Our little group is nurturing to me in body mind and spirit.
One of the women shared about a person she works with who she likes very much. This person has gone through life feeling like she doesn't fit in and that people don't like her. Val told this person she was delightfully quirky and the woman seemed to open to seeing herself in a different way. As she embraced being delightfully quirky she could see herself as being more lovable.
I instantly resonated with  the idea of being delightfully quirky. I think it could be healing to those of us who see ourselves as different and somehow not enough because of that. I like being delightfully quirky instead of there being something wrong with me or having a fatal flaw.
Embracing my quirkiness as part of me that I can hold in Love and be delighted by has been helpful. Try it on and see if you like it.
I have always been a pioneer in how I practice psychotherapy. Every time I learn something new I incorporate the new learning into my work. Over the years my toolbox has expanded to include yoga poses, singing, deep relaxation techniques and many varied therapeutic tools and methods using mindfulness, body awareness and kindness.  I am really living my dream of supporting the people I work with in being fully expressed beings in body mind life and spirit.
The spiritual dimension of my work is about supporting people in being aware of their spiritual support and asking for help in feeling connected to that support. Spiritual support means different things to different people. Spiritual support is whoever and whatever we feel held in love by for being exactly who we are. Take a moment to imagine your spiritual support circle around you. It can be nature based like a tree or a mountain or a river or the ocean. It could be made up of beings alive or not alive, God or goddesses, ancestors, Colors, sensations, sounds, people you know or don't know,
great teachers, loving grandmother figures and whatever other forms your own spiritual support comes in. Ask to be aware of that support and allow yourself the experience of being held in love for being exactly who you are. Today I worked with a woman who was a strong kinesthetic learner. She said she doesn't see anything and her spiritual support is a buzzing sensation in her torso. Your spiritual support might be something you see or sense or hear or feel.
If nothing comes you can embrace the nothing as spiritual support or simply remember a time you felt really loved. Let yourself feel held in love and bring that holding into your daily life. Let yourself take refuge in that love.
My spiritual support is always with me and I have been asking for their help whenever I think of it.
I have been asking for help from spiritual support at the beginning of every session when I do the mindfulness meditation ritual with the person I am working with. I have noticed since I have been asking for help that the quality of my work is changing. I am more willing to take risks in being vulnerable and the work has deepened. I am more willing to be my delightfully quirky self and the people I work with are also. I want to embrace more of what I held as unacceptable and unlovable as delightfully quirky. I am grateful to have spiritual support cheering me on to being more and more of all that I am and allowing me to support the people I work with in being more and more of all of who they are. I am so grateful to be able to share on this blog and to have all of you read my blog. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving.