Taking care of your Self.

It's hard not to think about the state of uncertainty that many are facing with the recent news of layoffs and, as a Holistic Wellbeing Consultant, reflect on how the connection with our Self, can help us find balance, guidance and wisdom even during challenging times.

We often identify the Self as something physical, something associated with our senses, emotions and thoughts, or body, mind and intellect.

Patanjali, Hindu author, mystic and philosopher, credited for the Yoga Sutras, one of the most ancient classical yoga texts, in Sutra II.6 speaks about the Kleshas or afflictions that cause suffering. He describes the Self as Asmita or false identification, sometimes also translated as ego.

False identification or ego manifests itself when we identify with the parts of us that change, rather than with the inner part that never changes. Our permanent essence. As Patanjali explains, the great challenge lies in the fact that, although it is easy and satisfying to appreciate and value the physical, intellectual qualities and identities that we build throughout life, if we identify with too much attachment to the changing aspects of ourselves, we are inexorably exposed to disappointment and suffering. If instead we connect and identify with the part of us that is permanent, we take better care of ourselves. A care that brings joy and contentment into our lives.

How do you then take care of yourself??

It is key to establish and cultivate the connection with the inner Self. In the world of Yoga some of the practices to nourish that connection are: asanas (physical positions), pranayama (breath regulation) and dhyana (meditation).

As a Holistic Wellbeing Consultant for mothers, it is my mission to help mothers, probably one of the categories that finds it most difficult to make time for self-care, to take care of the inner Self. That immutable and permanent Self that generates true wellbeing.

Matrescence, a word coined in the 1970s by medical anthropologist Dana Raphael describes the process of becoming a mother as similar to that of adolescence.

We change at a physical, psychological, social, and spiritual level. Our identity changes, be it the first or fifth time, the first or tenth year after giving birth. Research shows that a woman’s brain changes more quickly and more drastically during pregnancy and post-partum than at any other time in her life.?

By establishing and maintaining a strong connection with your inner Self, motherhood can be truly transformational. And when a woman lives in radiance, calm, joy and good health, this is the world her children enter and in which they learn how to live. Mothers are influential leaders who provide the foundations for the wellbeing of future generations.