Self Care Archives - Melody Ross Media

Soul Road #14 – The Road to Self-Nurturing

I am ready to accept that although my work and my ways of being with others in the world is the best part of my life, it can quickly and easily become a coping mechanism, a way to avoid my own inner world and an unhealthy addiction.
I know that I do this. I know that this is the most ridiculous and inefficient and even destructive pattern. It’s humiliating and humbling to take a good hard look at how many times I have done this to myself, somehow believing that “this time” it will be different. Somehow believing that self-sacrifice is noble and right in all situations.

I want to stop doing it. I HAVE TO stop doing it. Only I can stop doing it.

I know that I have real and enormous fears that I will become a selfish and self-indulgent person — and therefore a completely unacceptable person. I know that there’s a part of me that finds this to be so unacceptable that I am willing to risk my present and future health to avoid ever becoming that. Yet, I push myself so far that the only way to recover is to stop everything and sequester myself. And then here I am, only able to focus on myself, just to stay alive. Here I am in an emergency self-focus — I have just created my worst fear.

This pattern is NOT OKAY WITH ME anymore. These old beliefs ARE NOT OKAY WITH ME anymore.

Soul Road #13 – The Road to Self-Responsibility

I want to live out my own responsibility knowing that there will always be difficulty and distraction. There will always be unexpected bends and curves in the road. The road will sometimes end before I get to my destination. There will always be something confronting me that gives me the opportunity to choose between creating or destroying. Stalling or moving. Life or death. Kindness or contempt. Love or fear. Almost every single moment has 2 hands outstretched with one or the other to choose from. I want to take responsibility for what I do in those moments AND what I do after I choose.

I am going to mess up, even with best intentions. There will be times when I will wish I would have chosen differently. Those moments also hold tremendous opportunities. I want to take responsibility for choosing course correction over shame or blame. I want to extract the powerful lessons that come from “failure” and “mistakes” and I want to utilize the resulting potent energy of knowing I’ve missed the mark to fuel another try…and another.

I want to stop giving my own responsibility away for the results and rewards and consequences of my own life’s choices. Every action has a consequence. Every choice, every thought. Every next moment, and what happens in that moment, it all has consequences. Whatever I choose, I want to take responsibility for.