Imagine yourself in a dimly lit room. Candles are burning, and someone begins to gently play a crystal bowl. You’ve come to relax. As the sound continues, your body tightens and you think, “What’s wrong with me? This is supposed to be a healing sound experience. Why can’t I relax?”
This is a moment of choice. Do you stay and endure an uncomfortable experience, or do you get up, leave, and risk being perceived as rude?
Whatever your choice, it is the cumulation of a lifetime of experiences that reflects your current relationship with yourself.
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Our ability to listen, trust, and choose what is most loving and supportive to us is directly related to experiences and events in our past that shaped the beliefs we currently hold about ourselves. As subconscious beliefs come to conscious awareness, it becomes easier to transform old patterns of behavior into ones of self-love through conscious self-care choices.
Our first experience
A common thread wrapped around each of our early life experiences begins when we:
- are born into a strange new world, separated from our mother’s womb
- instinctively cry for someone to comfort, nourish, and sustain us to survive
- grow to depend on outside resources to feed, clothe, shelter, and love us
The birth experience creates the foundation for how we all begin this life’s journey, dependent upon others.
As we grow, we rely on outside resources to feed, clothe, shelter, and love us. We learn about ourselves and how we will eventually fit into the framework of our culture and society through those around us.
Watch, listen, and learn
We watch and listen as others interact. We watch and listen as others watch us, adjusting our behaviors to meet their expectations. We learn what makes them happy and what brings us pain or pleasure. It often becomes confusing when what we instinctively want to do is in direct opposition to what others want us to do.
We quickly learn it’s more comfortable to appease those who feed, clothe, shelter, and love us; they are older, have more experience, and we believe they know more than we do. At the same time, their hesitancy to listen to our wants and needs teaches us at a young age to do the same—to disregard, not listen, or not trust ourselves.
Each occurrence becomes part of the developing patterns and beliefs that influence our perceptions about ourselves and those around us.
Our circle expands
As we continue to grow, our circle of resources and reflections rapidly expand to include:
- personal friends
- neighbors
- teachers
- clergy
Each has their own preconceived belief and value system that they generously impose upon our evolving sense of self. Questioning those in authority is often met with criticism, judgment, or punishment, reinforcing the imposed standard of listening to others before listening and trusting ourselves.
Soon we find ourselves navigating toward groups that appear similar to us, or at least similar to what we think we desire to be. It’s natural to gravitate toward those we believe will keep us safe. It’s part of our instinctual need to survive.
As adults, this pattern of listening to others before trusting ourselves is subconsciously woven into what motivates our actions, reactions, and choices and often continues out of habit, familiarity, or a sense of comfort and safety.
Turning the mirror
For some, there comes a point when we feel it’s time for a change, a time to stop listening to everyone on the outside and to start listening to ourselves. Slowing down and listening is the first step in taking care of ourselves. Rather than depend on others to fulfill our wants and needs, we now turn the mirror and see our own reflection as the one who feeds, clothes, shelters, and loves us. We become the nurturer who listens, trusts, and chooses what most lovingly supports us. This process of turning the mirror inward and becoming our own nurturer is the journey of conscious self-care.
Practice conscious self-care
Self-care is rapidly becoming an important discipline to regain a sense of balance and wellbeing.
It is a practice unique to each individual. For some, self-care involves nurturing the physical body through massage, yoga, meditation, and healthy eating, which in turn supports their emotional wellbeing. For others, self-care is a spiritual practice that transforms their entire perception of life.
For me, conscious self-care is an awareness of how every intentional choice supports our physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and creative wellbeing. Conscious self-care is a practice I began during my first journey with breast cancer, when my body forced me to slow down, listen, and trust on a deeper level.
I had been on a spiritual journey of self-discovery for years prior to my diagnoses so the idea of subconscious patterning from early childhood experiences was familiar and integrated into my awareness. What surprised me was the depths to which these early experiences were embedded in my resistance to take care of myself. Hence the term, “conscious” self-care.
Be aware of implanted seeds
It became very clear my pattern of taking care of others before taking care of myself was rooted in being adopted, a pattern I have been conscious of for years. The idea that my birth mother gave me away triggered a primal fear of being alone, of not having anyone to feed, clothe, shelter, or love me…of dying. Although I know the truth of my birth mother’s intent was one of necessity and love, I lived with my erroneous belief for years.
It was the subconscious belief that I needed to be nice to everyone and take care of everyone, so they would like me, love me, not leave me or give me away, and so I wouldn’t be alone and die. Now, with this awareness, I’m empowered to make more conscious self-care choices that lovingly support me in every moment.
We all have early experiences that seeded beliefs we now hold about ourselves. Perhaps a parent yelled something when they were mad, a teacher may have said something to crush your dreams, or a friend may not have invited you to a social event. In retrospect, these singular events may seem trivial, but they planted the seeds that grew into subconscious beliefs of not being worthy, not being good enough, or not being loved.
At the time these events occurred, we were still listening and trusting others more than ourselves. As we slow down and turn the mirror, memories may surface into our conscious awareness, creating opportunities to transform their influence on our self-care choices.
Eating ice cream out of a container
One of my favorite stories of conscious self-care is when I reached for a container of ice cream and noticed there was only a little left. I went to grab a bowl out of the cabinet then stopped and asked myself, “Why are you grabbing a bowl? Why don’t you just eat it right out of the container?”
My initial thoughts were:
- We’ve taught our kids not to eat out of containers because double-dipping is not polite.
- I don’t want my husband or kids to see me because they might judge me.
- If they judge me, they may not like me—then I’ll be alone.
Can you see how this simple desire for ice cream became an opportunity to explore an old pattern of behavior? In that moment I made a conscious choice to grab a spoon, get the container of ice cream, sit down, and enjoy every last bite!
Yes, eating ice cream out of the container was a conscious self-care choice, because I listened to my intuition and the questions I was asking myself, trusted the questions were coming from a place of deeper knowing within me and that old patterns were subconsciously motivating my habitual actions, and made a different choice to continue transforming old fears and subconscious beliefs of being alone, a choice made from a place of love and compassion for myself.
Listen, trust, and choose
We all have early childhood experiences that seeded the beliefs we now hold about ourselves, influencing our actions and choices. It takes courage to stop listening, trusting, and choosing what we think will appease others. It’s up to us to start listening, trusting, and choosing what is most loving and supportive to us in every moment.
Yes, as we change our habitual patterns of behavior, those around us may not feel comfortable at first, because what used to feel familiar has changed. What I know from personal experience is, as we make loving choices for ourselves, everyone benefits whether they know it or not—and that is conscious self-care.
For more from Amy Camie, check out Overcoming the Need to Always Be Productive.
