While I love candles and Epsom salts as much as the next person, recently, I have been feeling as if what’s normally called “self-care” — soaking in a bath, drinking tea — is not enough to replenish me these days.
It does give me a little hit, a feeling of well-being for a while but it is not a cure for spiritual exhaustion.
I know that’s not the kind of thing people talk about nowadays. And when it comes to spirituality, I don’t believe anymore in the Gods of my childhood. I just believe that there IS something good in the world.
So, it’s more about my own spirit, which has been feeling tired and burnt out, and which does need a connection to something bigger, whether I call it God or the universe or nature. So, I have been trying to rekindle this connection.
One way I’m practicing doing this is by connecting with people and ideas that feel meaningful to me.
Something I have been finding really nourishing nowadays is the podcast This Jungian Life. I love Carl Jung’s work and in this podcast, three Jungian analysts (the Jungian name for psychotherapists) talk in an energy-infusing way about things that trouble all of our human souls: Doubts (both healthy and unhealthy), Adapting to Life’s Changing Demands, and other good stuff.
If you are interested in the inner life or in symbols and archetypes or are even remotely familiar with Jung’s work, you’ll love this podcast. It’s interesting, engaging and will make you sit up and take notice. And it will make you feel as if a little more of your vital life is returning back to you.
Another thing I started doing a few months ago is write a sentence or two every day in a little notebook I titled The Little Book of Meaning. I have been writing down any meaningful things that either happened or that I made happen.
I had been meaning to go to a Sufi whirling class for years and I finally did this (online) with the lovely Farima Berenji. Then, one day, my husband and I went for a drive and when we returned, just outside our community gate was a hummingbird hovering on top, as if waiting just for us. The hummingbird is a special symbol for me, and I talk about a magical, serendipitous encounter with it in The Empath’s Journey.
Another day, I attended a beautiful talk hosted by my local library with author Rick McIntyre, the first wolf expert at the famous Yellowstone National Park, who told some touching stories about the lives of Yellowstone’s most famous wolves. The stories were so beautiful and the wolves felt so noble that we were all teary-eyed by the end.
So, in short, I did some meaningful things, and some things happened to/for me.
Just noticing them and writing them down made me feel a little more connected, and I thought of something that I heard creativity coach Eric Maisel say in a talk I attended last year: You don’t find meaning. You create meaning.
I need to keep this in mind and also keep my need for variety in mind as I try to get deeper nourishment for myself.
There’s a lot of craziness out there in the world, but there’s also a lot of good. And I get to decide what I pay attention to. I think being pulled in to the crazy all the time is really discouraging, especially if you are someone who feels things deeply. It’s like always being in the valleys. Our deep feelings also need the clear air of the mountains, and that’s where I’m trying to focus right now.
What nourishes you? Who are the people that speak to you? Find them. Listen to them. Let them and their experience nourish you and give you little threads of connection back to your center.
These are our kindred spirits. When we pay attention to them, we can receive the gifts they have to give us.
Ritu Kaushal is the author of the book The Empath’s Journey, which TEDx speaker Andy Mort calls “A fascinating insight into the life of a highly sensitive person and an emotional empath.” Sign up for Ritu’s newsletter to get two free chapters of The Empath’s Journey.
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