In this week’s Mintaka Reiki in Sandbach Blog, I talk about self-care. Now, I know I’m always banging on about self-care, but this week it was me who needed to take my own advice!
It’s been a very busy few weeks in the Pearson house. In addition to running the Reiki practice, running the house and running around sorting out everything else, we also bought a new-to-us narrowboat.
This is something we’ve wanted to do for ages; we’ve been looking for about 18 months to find the right boat (at the right price!), but when we finally found ‘the one’, it all happened very quickly.
We’re very fortunate to live next to the canal, so once we’d brought the boat home, the work to renovate it could begin… And boy is there a lot of work to do. Husband and I have worked flat out over the last few weeks to get everything ship-shape, in addition to juggling the day-jobs of course.
Needless to say, when there was a day earlier this week when I didn’t have any clients booked in until later in the afternoon, I immediately started on my long to-do list of boat jobs right after breakfast…
…but then I suddenly felt a bit dizzy and sick, like I needed to rest, or better still – sleep!
I knew immediately what was needed – that’s the joy of being a Reiki Therapist – so I did indeed stop everything, went and lay down on my bed, and I gave myself Reiki. It was a joy.
When you learn how to do Reiki, you’re told that the whole point of this ancient healing technique is to look after yourself first, before you even think of helping other people.
But after realising that I hadn’t actually had a day off from doing ‘stuff’ for several weeks, I knew that I had been neglecting my own self-care.
That day, I decided my to-do list would have to wait.
Instead, the day was going to be about self-care – which for me, meant going into my greenhouse.
This is one of my happy places (I’ve got a few!), where I get to potter around, talk to my plants, and (hopefully) nurture new life.
Now, one of the five Reiki principles is – I will be kind to every living thing – but standing in my greenhouse earlier this week I realised I hadn’t been very kind to the plants and seedlings I’d neglected because I was so busy doing boat things!
I soon remedied that of course. And it made me feel so much happier too – because by being in my happy place, I was also looking after my own self-care needs.
Your body will always tell you when it’s in need of self-care, and by the time I returned to ‘normal’ life later that afternoon, the Reiki I’d received earlier had kicked in and I felt refreshed and ready to go again.
Having that spell of feeling out-of-sorts, though, was a perfect reminder that sometimes we all need to just slow down, or better still, stop. And have a Reiki top-up of course!
Until next week.
Much love,
Denise
Comments