How do you love and nourish yourself?
"Love yourself. Even the most wild and crazy parts."
~Lisa Lister
Incense is such a delight to my body. It actually has none of the healing, therapeutic chemical properties of essential oils, but it definitely stimulates my limbic system and triggers happy, relaxed memories of being in Bali.
As part of my morning ritual, I often have a long bath surrounded by incense and essential oils. That and a mix of yoga, meditation, visualisation, spell casting, energy healing and journalling, depending what my Soul/body needs each day. I'm learning more and more to listen into the call of my body.
At one time, my Secret Witch (who didn't know her power and magic) would have either denied her body these pleasures - or felt a slave to a specific routine of the *perfect* ritual, as if she needed these practices to be right to save her life. And, of course, sometimes Secret Witch still falls into the trap of needing to get it right or denying herself pleasure, but my wild Witch Queen notices this and offers her choice.
Liberated, Witch Queen instead knows that she only needs to *listen* into the fabric of her cells for guidance on what's *for* her in each moment. She'll notice the way textures feel, the way specific scents delight her (and those that don't), the way the bubbles in her bath tingle on her legs, the warmth she longs for. Today, incense is delighting Her - and She's choosing to receive!
The Secret Witch doesn't nurture and nourish herself, usually because she has ideas that she isn't worthy of nurture, that it is too luxurious and self-indulgent, that she doesn't deserve it - or that she isn't enough to receive her heart's desires.
But the deeper she treads into Soul, the more she learns to hold the tension of receiving (which she was built for, after all). The Witch Queen is in the work of loving herself through all of her old stories of "not deserving" as she steps courageously into offering herself the love she innocently (and often unconsciously) thinks she shouldn't have.
So today, I celebrate myself with beautiful roses, a reflexology treatment, and beautiful luxurious baths. And another day, that might be something completely different that calls to me Soul, too. My deeper devotion is to loving myself, in each moment.
We can put all sorts of distractions in the way of loving ourselves, but really, I've come to see, it mostly takes us to make it conscious and then devote to it fully.
Much love
Nicole x
