Mindful Showering and Self-Love

I start every day with a shower, always. It could be my body, or just in my mind, but I always feel a little grimy after sleeping, and I want to start my day with the freshness I can only find in a shower. Showering itself can be a very cleansing process, for both the body and one's subtle energy, and it's also possible to foster extensive self love in the shower.

Self-love is so incredibly important to foster. It allows for a growth in confidence and self esteem and it starts increasing our ability to experience love and (when fostered enough) unconditional love for those around us and our life situations. Energetically, it empowers us to heal ourselves and others, to let compassion spring forward, to dive deeper into our faith or spiritual practice, and to feel content when understanding who we are and what we can accomplish in life.

Despite its necessity, self-love can be tricky, especially when we're experience the vulnerable state of nudity like we do in the shower. We are in our most bare state, and unlike when we are just dressing or undressing, we have to actually interact with every part of our body in the shower. With a society that teaches that one singular body type means "beauty," the majority of us feel left out when we experience our naked body. It's not an easy thing to teach ourselves to recognize our own innate beauty, but it oh so important.

When we become more confident in our body image, so many positive things happen. We feel that we have more control over our bodies (which means that, if struggling with weight that we want to change*, we can do so--under or overweight), we understand that we are all beautiful at whatever size and shape we embody, we are more grounded into our body (we don't try to dissociate and escape this sacred physical form we are in), and our general self-esteem and confidence increases.

While dealing with gender dysphoria, loving my body became an incredibly important concern. I did not have the body type I wanted, or am "supposed" to have as a man. Yet, I did have this body. I couldn't change my body overnight in any way, so I had to work towards self-love and acceptance instead.

Showers became incredibly important. Besides just cleaning me and waking me up each morning, it was a time to foster this much needed self-love, in a way that's easy for anyone to foster.

I highly suggest lathering the soap onto your hands, instead of a loofah or washcloth, so you can more directly interact with your body. I personally wash myself from the top down, but wash yourself whichever way works best for you. The important part of this mindful showering practice is to focus on what it feels like to wash your body.

There are so many interesting textures to our skin, so many interesting directions that our hands move when they go from the boney to the muscular to the fatty parts of our figure. Each section is totally vital to our well being, and is a part of ourselves. Paying attention to both sensation and sending love through the act of washing yourself creates a dynamic of mindfulness and compassion, two important characteristic for anyone with a spiritual practice. The only thing to do with this mindfulness practice is to slow down and love what it feels like to wash your body, love what it feels like to become clean.

Sometimes, if it isn't distressing, it can be very positive to spend extra time caressing the parts of your body you struggle to love--maybe these are wrinkles, scars, moles, even amputated limbs. Just make sure, when focusing here, that it fosters love, not a negative emotion. Sometimes we aren't ready to face a certain part of ourselves and just accept it, so then just focus on the self-love towards the rest of your body, it will allow you to grow total acceptance over time.

The energy of the element of water itself is an incredible healing force, hence why we crave hot showers and baths to calm ourselves when we're stressed or emotional. Water corresponds to the second, sacral, chakra, and is one of the most adaptable elements. Think of how water always fills whatever container it is placed in. Water, when you focus on using the element for emotional and spiritual healing, can teach you to flow in any circumstance, no matter how confining it seems. Water can also wash away negative thoughts and energies, and the act of washing increases this intention too.

For our temperaments and personality, water allows us to flow, change, and grow. The natural water of a shower can help love flow around us, especially when we make a conscious effort to intend that the act of showering is meant for self love. The energy of water will only enhance and empower our intention.

I always notice, when I remember to spend a little extra time in the shower focusing on this practice, I come out feeling much more refreshed, beautiful, and confident. Water and love are powerful tools for healing.


*Note: With fat-shaming being a current discussion, I wanted to address this sentence more in depth. I don't personally believe anyone has to change their weight or appearance in any way, though I do advocate health. Weight can cause health issues (if "under" or "overweight"), and this is often important to address, but it is completely the individual's choice whether or not to address this at all. I will always respect that choice and recognize a beauty in anyone at any weight or with any appearance. 

Image source here

Food For Your Chakras: Citrus Mint Salad

Heal your root, sacral, heart, and third eye chakras with this easy recipe! Serves around 6-8 portions.

Citrus Mint Salad-adapted from a recipe by Valerie Winebrenner

The Recipe:

1. Wash 1 pint of raspberries and 1 pint of blueberries under cold water. Wash and cut 1 lb of strawberries. Peel 2 oranges and remove the pith (and membranes from the flesh of the fruit, if possible). Add all of these to a large mixing bowl.
2. Zest 1 lemon and 1 lime, add this into a smaller bowl you have.
3. In the smaller bowl, combine 3 T of Honey, 1 T of lemon juice, 1 T of lime juice, 2 T of orange juice and 1 T of freshly chopped mint to the lemon and lime zest.
4. Whisk the contents of the smaller bowl to make the dressing, then pour this over the fruit in the larger bowl. Toss the fruit, being careful not to crush the delicate raspberries.
5. Garnish with more mint or coconut if you wish. 

The Energetic Benefits:

• Foods that heal and restore the root chakra: strawberries, raspberries
• Foods that heal and restore the sacral chakra: strawberries, oranges, lemon, orange juice, lemon juice, honey
• Foods that heal and restore the heart chakra: mint, lime, lime juice
• Foods that heal and restore the third eye chakra: blueberries

To boost the energetic effects, spend a moment meditating to create a flow of white light coming out of your hands. Place your hands around the bowl of prepared food and imagine the white light swirling throughout it and cleansing it for around a minute. 

Enjoy~

My personal notes and thoughts: I loved this recipe, it was extremely sweet but bursted with healthy, natural sugars and flavors. I could feel the sensual fruit, perfect for healing and awakening the sacral, moving directly towards my lower chakras, as well as this sweet uplifting taste of mint. This was absolutely delicious, and I had it for both a dinner and breakfast! Fruit can be a little expensive, so this might be a recipe you want to budget for, but it was definitely worth it. A really delicious treat for your sacral energy, and the perfect meal for summer. 

Why it is so Important to Love the Sick Parts of Your Body

I don't think there's a person on this planet that isn't, at some time, plagued with at least a pesky ailment, illness, or disease. Our skin is frequently affected, like with warts, fungi, bacteria, eczema, acne, etc. We also get indigestion, sore throats, runny noses. Then there are a plethora of more severe illnesses that we can contract.

I've been fortunate enough to never have battled a life threatening illness, which is something I'm incredibly grateful for. But, since I am indeed human, I have had pesky ailments hit me at an alarming frequency. Over time, I've come to learn what ailments are associated with certain energy imbalances (I'll be sure to go through these more in depth in later posts); when the imbalance is severe enough, my body reacts by producing or becoming susceptible to an ailment. That's how my body (and it seems a lot of spiritual practitioner's bodies) work. Someone once said to me "When are you in a state of 'dis-ease,' or not at ease with yourself/your energy, it's more likely your body with have a disease."

For a couple years I've battled certain conditions which have really destroyed my psyche when it came to my body. I felt dirty and secretive about the shameful ways my body was susceptible to disease and illness. Although I was still strong and, fortunately, able-bodied, these conditions distressed me. I found myself ashamed of the sections of my body that were afflicted, and I was hesitant to even think about them for fear of giving the condition more powerful. I wanted to cut off my foot, tear away a toenail. (Literally, that would have hurt and caused a lot more damage, but my level of distress over even small ailments was severe enough that it made me wish these acts were possible). Most likely, not everyone is so distressed about small and harmless conditions, but I (and probably others) sometimes are.

It was only the other night, after doing a lot of work with my root chakra, that I realized it was harmful to be afraid of interacting with afflicted areas of my body (or even seeing them as something other than me--"the diseased skin", not "an afflicted patch of skin that's also me"). I was laying under my sheets, incredibly aware of the contact this area was making with my bed and feeling like it had poisoned that entire spot with infection. Of course, infection can travel through contact, but my fear was a little extreme in this moment.

I became aware of how I had not actually considered these affected areas to be a part of me. My body: me. They were the other, I was the untainted me. But I was wrong! These afflicted parts of my body were me as well. My body was saying "hey, pay attention, there's something in you that I'm showing you is wrong. You're not at ease!" Before this awakening, I wasn't thanking my body for sharing this information, I was pushing it away and harming me mental state and energy body more.

I've come to understand, after years of energy work, that almost all illness and disease has energetic and spiritual roots. (It has physical ones too, and everyone can catch illnesses, but there's also a reason why practices like Reiki have alone cured cancer). My root chakra has been really off lately, so of course my feet were afflicted with things. Thank you, body, for showing me that I really need to work through the emotion and physical consequences simultaneously.

I really learned that it was only harming me to reject the ill places of my body. We all struggle through different states of health, often we can't control what our bodies are afflicted with, but our mentality about these areas is something we most often have control over. When I focused intently on the sick areas of my body and told myself, internally, that they were me and a part of me I loved, something really changed. I felt calmer, more still and peaceful.