HEALING YOUR KINTSUKUROI HEART; Part 5. How To Get To Know Yourself And Reveal The Source Of Your Issues

Healing-Your-Kintsukuroi-Heart-Part-5-How-to-Get-to-Know-Yourself-and-Get-to-the-Source-of-Your-Issues-by-Amie-Gabriel

 HOW TO GET TO KNOW YOURSELF AND REVEAL THE SOURCE OF YOUR ISSUES – Turning your life into a full-time retreat.

This is part 5 in a series.  Click here or "Healing Your Kintsukuroi Heart" in the categories menu to go to the full series
 
If doing what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working, you’ll have to do something else.  Once again simple but not easy.  In order to find out who you really are – to really get to know yourself – you will have to create space in your life.  A lot of it.
 
The Wisdom of Minimalism (Where Terrifying Meets Extraordinary)
 
Turn off the noise.  It is a distraction and a huge time vampire.  I went all the way with this one because, well, I was really ready.  I was sick to death of living the way I was living and feeling the way I was feeling so I made a drastic change.  It also dovetailed perfectly with one of my “symptoms” which was my financial problems.  Even if you don’t have financial issues, there is still great beauty in living with less.
 
I turned off my internet (breathe), my cable and my landline telephone.  It was a terrifying step to take – and let me tell you, my internet/cable provider did not make it easy.  They made offer upon offer to keep from losing me as a customer but I stood firm.  Once I did it, it was like the scene from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy’s house got spit out of the twister.  She landed with a thud and everything went silent.  Being left alone with yourself without TV or internet is terrifying and liberating in equal measure although the liberating part is a little harder to absorb. 
 
So there is was alone I my quiet little house.  Now what? What the hell am I supposed to DO?  What will you do?  And the answer is… anything you want! 
 
Here’s the list of what I stopped doing:
 
Watching the news.
Watching tv or movies with no redeeming qualities.
Socializing and/or having relationships with toxic people.
Eating unhealthy food.
Wasting time on things that don’t matter.
Negative self-talk.
 
Here’s a list of some the things I did with my new free time:

• Went for walks (movement is a wonderful facilitator of healthy, productive thought)
• Went running.
• Read
• Practiced yoga and meditation.
• Took on the projects I’d been putting off forever.
  • Decluttered, organized and cleaned my house.
  • Worked on simple repairs on my house.
  • Paired down my wardrobe.
• Worked in my garden.
• Whet to “pick your own” fruit and veggie farms from spring to fall.
• Went to the library.
  • I’d go with a list of things I wanted to look-up/research online.
  • Checked out books, books on tape and movies with positive and empowering themes.
• Journaled
• Soaked in the tub, sometimes reading in there for hours.
• Practiced self-care/skin-care.
• Started working on my art again.
• Stared sewing again.
• Went to museums.
• I spent time with only a very few of my closest friends who were on similar paths but intentionally kept socializing to a minimum.
• Worked on my career deciding which parts to expand and which to let go of.
• I identified the source of my issues – my low self-esteem – and made a concerted effort to heal.
• I went to bed and got up at the time that best suited me.
• Cooked healthy meals for myself.
• I tried new things I’d always wanted to try but never got around to just to see if I liked them.

 
What I accomplished in doing all this was discovering who I was and what I most liked to do.  I created a schedule that was all mine filled with things I never even knew I liked or never had the time to do.  I became so much calmer and more relaxed and without the barrage of negativity from the news and social media I was happier, more centered and grounded.
 
The better care I took of myself the better I felt about myself. The better I felt about myself the better choices I made.  The better choices I made the more I earned self-respect.  The more self-respect I had, the better care I took of myself, an so on… 
 
In doing this for an extended period of time, I found clarity.  I found my identity.  I found my strength and power. I began to feel really sure of myself and confident in who I am.  I became far less mailable to the opinions of others.  I rewrote my internal dialogue. 
 
I discovered I was passionate about going to bed and getting up early, going for a run at first light and then making myself a big healthy breakfast.  I remember how much I adored hiking in the woods and loved my artwork.  I even had my first real art show!  I was an artist!  Who the heck knew?  I found that I couldn’t wait to make myself dinner and watch a dvd about an empowered woman or how someone overcame the odds and found true happiness.  I enjoyed it so much that I’d actually get excited about it!   I did these things daily – even on days I had to work I could still get up early and do what I wanted. The same at the end of the day.  By doing exactly what I wanted – good healthy habits - for an extended period of time I found I very much preferred my own company doing what I enjoyed over many other things.  I certainly wasn’t going to spend my time with people who weren’t positive and really enjoyable to be around or doing something that was unhealthy for myself.  I got to the point where it simply was no longer an option. 
 
Here’s something else I found - The brain is the original search engine; it remembers what you’re looking for and seeks it out, putting it in your path over and over.  When I stopped making unhealthy choices those choices, over time, fell away and no longer presented themselves in my life.  It’s not that they no longer existed they just became so uninteresting to me, they fell of my radar.  Remember the Jersey Barriers? (Click here to read my Jersey Barrier reference!) 
 
I learned that it becomes second nature to make healthy choices for yourself when you like yourself and know exactly who you are.  And it becomes second nature to do so with a quiet grace.
 
 
“Holding on is believing that there’s only a past; letting go is knowing that there’s a future.”
– Daphne Rose Kingma

​Read Amie's Book:
​KINTSUKUROI HEART; More Beautiful for Having Been Broken
​Order on Kindle or in paperback on Amazon