Easter 2022: the version of you that you would gladly let die (includes free resources).
Celebrating Life
No matter how you nurture spirituality, it has been shown that individuals who engage in spiritual practices and communities are more likely to be healthy and live longer, fuller lives.
I love how Easter in the Christian tradition is a time to celebrate Life and what makes us more alive. It’s incredibly important for me, because I grew up in a family and a culture that didn’t have a deep appreciation for Life. As a result, I picked up habits that were life-depleting (not taking care of myself, smoking, drinking excessively, not respecting myself, throwing myself in work to exhaustion), and a set of attitudes that contributed to my depression, burnout and loneliness. Attitudes like entitlement, pride, certitude, resentment, bitterness, sadness, and hostility. I only realized that through my losses and health issues.
My story: a coming back to life
Towards the end of my post-doctoral contract at the University of Alberta, I was running an animal study that involved me in unethical procedures.
This made me physically sick. I lost so much weight that my colleagues started to suspect an eating disorder, even though I was eating the same way I always had.
I was absolutely miserable at work and this particular study created a lot of conflict with my supervisors, because I was standing up to the fact that our protocol was not only unethical, it also did not achieve its purpose of inducing cellular senescence. The dose of the chemical we were using was too high and too frequent. In my informed opinion, this was just pure torture and did not serve the purpose of the experiment.
My objections were not heard, even when using evidence that we had the wrong procedure.
The personal significance of this difficult situation for me was a realization that I had a respect for Life, at a very deep level. This pointed to one of my core values, which I was not aware of before.
Here is what I thought at the time: “As cancer research scientists, how could we expect to positively contribute to people’s health if we don’t have enough respect for life, in the way we engage in animal studies?”. For me it was a matter of integrity.
Have you ever been in a situation in your life that you felt conflicted about, felt physically ill because of it, or that was a breaking point? If you have, this tells you something about a core value of your own.
Our core values drive us: whether or not we are aware of them, they will lead us to make decisions.
They can also inform us of what creates a sense of purpose.
After this conflict, I struggled to continue working with passion and dedication. I didn’t fit in the team any longer, and my supervisors started to give me signs that they wanted me out. My performance declined, my health didn’t get better and I just made it to the end of my contract. I was then told they didn’t see a role for me anymore.
I had not prepared for an exit strategy and this was the end of my career in research.
It’s not until years later, after watching a webinar with Dr. Jacinta Jimenez on “Buffering againts burn out”, that I recognized in my experience the signs of a burn out.
Losing the possibility of a career in research and having to deal with a health crisis, I was in a moment of my life where I was in a valley of despair.
What was I going to do with my life?
I was battling with feelings of incompetence, guilt and fear of the future. Unable to work for a while, I felt useless and worthless.
It took some radical self-care and personal work, notably around identifying my core values and prioritizing a sense of purpose, for me to come back to life.
But now, I see this episode as a gift.
Because of my life journey, because of events in my past like this, I now know that my purpose has to do with supporting you in developing life-giving attitudes.
I help people achieve higher levels of health, because for me, health is Life.
The version of me that I gladly want to let die
Easter in the Christian tradition is also the symbolic of Christ’s journey from death to life. It had me thinking about the version of me that I gladly want to let die in order to come back new and be more of the version of me that I truly want to be.
This, to me, is the deep meaning of the story of the resurrection, and something anyone on the path of change could use. I believe that we can all, each day, decide to be our ideal self.
At this point in my life, the version of me I truly want to be, is a me who experiences more peace, flow, easiness and abundance. It’s actually a version of me with less of me, with less ego, a state of being that mindfulness can help achieve, when we are one with our experience. I sometimes find this state when I slow down, let go of my plans, rest in the moment, drop in my body and take time to be in awe of life. In brief moments, I can be my ideal self when I can get my thinking mind to quiet.
This might sound like a cliché, but what is really holding me back from experiencing this more is my own self, my ego, a version of me that has been shaped by life experiences and whom I really dislike at times.
I am at a point in my personal development as an entrepreneur where I find my past self to be blocking the road to my flourishing. My negative experiences as a child have been showing up in some situations.
In this Easter weekend, I am mentally and voluntarily nailing this past self to the cross. This is the message I hear this year in my spiritual work: let the version of you, that is self-limiting die, and come back to life as your true self.
Let the version of you, that is self-limiting, die.
Then come back to life as your true self.
It’s not easy.
On Easter Sunday, I had a perfect day. I came to realize that I could have a perfect day each day, if I want to, by making it a choice. By making sure that my reactions are not following the same old patterns, by making the decision in a split second to be compassionate instead of annoyed, or to trust that things will work out when they don’t go as planned.
But I have to catch myself, I have to take a pause to consciously choose my response. My mindfulness practice has been instrumental in achieving what is called “spacious awareness”: the ability to build the space in which you choose to respond in a way that is more aligned with the ideal version of yourself.
It’s not easy, because most of us won’t let ourselves fully experience flow or happiness.
Letting yourself be happy
As we were cooking for our guests, having this perfect day, I told my husband Ryan “I’m happy”. Ryan answered by sharing that for him, every time there is happiness, doubt comes to rob him of it and he gets filled with a sense of impending doom. Things can’t be so good, something terrible must be coming.
Can you relate to this feeling? I have certainly experienced it. Gay Hendricks actually opens his book “The Big leap – Conquer your hidden fear and take life to the next level” with this concept. We are not letting ourselves experience happiness and positive energy. Becoming aware of this block is a key to unlocking a life that is more abundant, and tap into an expansive energy that can ripple around us.
I know this “energy” talk might sound “woo woo”… But I lack the words to describe it any better.
I do believe that we all have blocks: they are internal dialogues and self-talks in our minds that are negative, that make us smaller and enslave us to old reactions. They are life-depleting patterns - whatever they may be for you-, they are wounds from past trauma and things we do that are not contributing to our thriving.
In my experience, you have to want to let the life-depleting patterns go in order to grow and feel whole. You have to gladly let the blocks die to be happy and free.
And I do believe that by becoming aware of these life-depleting patterns, we can start the work of exposing them and make the conscious decision to let them die. We can start the work of bringing to life our ideal self.
What do you think?
Feel more youthful and more alive
Can you see the version of you that you’d like to let go?
If you want more awareness of your life-depleting patterns, need help to let the limited version of yourself die, if you feel ready to bring your better self to life, here is how I can help:
I provide support and resources to help you create a mindfulness practice that will allow you to build spacious awareness, so you can start having a different reaction in situations of stress, pressure and you can have more peace in your relationships.
To learn more, watch my webinar on Using mindfulness to buffer against stressI am dedicated to help you understand your own life-depleting patterns. I have created a longevity assessment for this purpose. It’s a questionnaire that only takes 25 minutes to fill. It’s free of charge, and free of commitment. I use science-backed systems to score it and create your personalized report. It will give you the first step to feeling more youthful and more alive: awareness.
You can take it right here, right now, for free:
Please let me know what resonates with you in the stories I shared today with an email at catbirdwellness@gmail.com
I look forward to being of service to you and see YOU be happy and free.
Jihane.
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