well-being

Gratitude Journaling – Part 001

| Sheree
My little book of gratitude

From time to time, I’ve tried to keep a gratitude journal. I’ve read the research and heard the stories about expressing gratitude for your life and what is part of it, here and now. This is a great practice in order to be more present in your life as well as be happier.

I saw expressing gratitude and writing it down as just another thing to add to my to-do list mostly. I resented the time spent on it as as well as beating myself up for the times I missed a day or two. I felt like this was just another indication of me failing.

I think as part of my intentional healing journey of 2023 ( have I talked here about it?) I brought gratitude back into my day, or I’m trying to. Offering myself grace and compassion when there are times I forget to complete it some days, I allowed myself to start small.

Today, I am grateful for …

This is how I start each entry and I allow myself to just mark one thing I’m grateful for. One thing. One sentence. Most days it’s doable. Most days I remember. Some days there’s more than one think, more than one thing to be grateful for. But there are still some days I forget and the days run away from me. But I do not sweat it. I pick it back up when I remember.

I keep this little notebook with the image of Frida Kahlo on my bedside table. I love this little notebook. I love Frida Kahlo but I also love how I feel when I write in this book. I feel better. I feel present. I feel grateful for what I have, how I feel, what I experience. Fostering positive energy for the here and now rather than energy wasted on what I don’t have or want instead.

The research is right. Practicing gratitude does foster appreciation and happiness for the things and people in your life. Now. Simples.

Here are a few gratitude moments captured in this little book of gratitudes from the beginning of the year so far:

Today I am grateful for the reminder that I am loving, loved and loveable.

Today I am grateful for the time and space to create a vision board for the year ahead.

Today I am grateful for my body to be able to walk and get into the sea.

Today I am grateful for my lie in. For rest and sleep.

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to put things right .

Today I am grateful for the connections I am making, with myself and others.

Expect to see more posts about gratitude as I delve deeper into the practice and the effects it is having on my life. What contributions it is making to my healing journey?

Full to the brim

| Sheree
Cullercoats Bay, 22 March, 2023, 16.33

I got the sea, after an intense and beautiful anti-racism facilitation session with the National Trust.

At some point, I’ll unpack this experience. I just know I make a promise to myself before this last session to save something back for myself.

I give and give. I have a tendency to give in the hope to be received and receive. I give as I believe I’m here to be of service.

It is only recently that I feel that in order to keep on being of and in service, I have to give to myself, first and foremost.

So I go to the sea after this anti-racism book group session, keeping a promise to myself.

I go to the sea to heal.

To be cleansed. To be released. I save just enough energy to get me to the sea. To strip down and take the short sharp steps into the waters.

This afternoon, the sea is full to the brim.

Just like my heart after the intense and beautiful final session with the National Trust around being a good ally in a society becoming more anti-racist.

This is a (QUIET) Revolution

| Sheree
Vision Board, 2023

Every year for the past 5 I’d say I’d spend time at the end of/beginning of the year to create a vision board of intentions and dreams.

I say this, for the past 5 years, except the last one. 2022 was the year I never set out my intentions, my dreams. I missed the window of magic, I felt, and just couldn’t muster the mojo to set things down.

I missed this road map, this visioning throughout the year. There were times during 2022, that I was questioning what I was doing and where I was going. But I realise now that I needed that low, down energy to heal and recover after the last two years of Covid. And it’s not over even now, but I know I have better coping and managing skills today.

So thinking about 2022, and my lack of motivation and direction, I knew when 2023 came around, my vision board practice was coming back. Not to get all productive on my arse but because I love to have this beauty pinned to my bedroom wall at the bottom of my bed and see it every day.

Vision Board, 2023

Having my vision board in plain sight, everyday, the first thing I see in the morn and the last thing at night, is a gift and blessing. I get to see and feel what I want to manifest within the present moment, each day. It’s not a bind in anyways, but it is a reminder and commitment to myself to love. Myself and others.

It brings me joy to see my vision board because it is a thing of beauty. I know everything on it has been placed with intention and love for self. With joy. And it’s not used as a to-do list of productivity and perfection. It is a beacon or siren to make sure I’m {being} in my life how my soul wants to be showing up in life for me first and foremost.

Vision Board, 2023

That’s why I call it a quiet Revolution. I’m revolting against the system, this White Supremacy Culture, from the inside out. I’m rejecting all those beliefs and practices and ways of being that have been implanted within me since being born into a system which indoctrinates us into being machines to the system. Where we repress our true selves to fit in and be accepted. Where we do not question or reject the system but uphold it and perpetuate it through our actions and attitudes towards others and ourselves.

Vision Board, 2023

So here I am sharing my vision board of 2023. Not as a ‘look at me, aren’t I clever’ kind of vibe. But to inspire. I’m always about sharing my practice to inspire. Last year I gave up early, without creating a vision board. Along with using excuse and excuse afterwards for not trying to create one.

I share with you mine so you might feel inspired to create one or not even a physical one but a space in your heart and mind for your intentions and dreams and ways of being. It’s never too late is my motto. Something I could have used last year, but some how couldn’t muster the energy to. But I think this might have been a demonstration of my lack of commitment to myself and my dreams last year and being content enough to just get by. I know I needed this time of rest in place to move onto 2023 with renewed energy and a massive intention to heal.

Swings and roundabouts. I just know everything sits better with me when I know I’m on a mission to heal from the inside out through this quiet revolution of a slow, listening, restful practice.

Rest, Privilege and My Tender Heart ❤️

| Sheree

Where is this year going? It is moving fast. The time that is. I’m still knee deep in my SLOW practice and I’m loving it.

I know it’s getting to the point of going back out; of shifting my energies as I’m feeling a stirring. In my gut mostly. And an excitement fluttering in my chest. For what I do not know. But I’m happy to sit in/ with the feeling for now. Appreciating the joy it brings.

I know I’ve got certain privileges. To be able to turn my back on the world, on work commitments for the first three months of 2023 is a privilege. But I also want to make clear, that I worked my arse off at the back end of 2022 to be able to do this. I’m living frugally in order to reap the benefits of rest and self-care.

I’m so grateful for the time and space to rest and breathe deeply. As well as the capacity to dream and envision a future. I have much faith and trust in what the future will bring. I know I will have to fashion some happenings myself, work out some details and projects. But at the same time, I know that the Universe has a plan also. She’s got my back and I trust she will deliver what is best for me. It might not seem so at the time, and there may be challenges ahead. But I trust her, and I’m allowing my tender heart to mend.

I’ve mentioned before how I’m intentionally leaning into my healing journey. With social episodes each month released with The Earth Sea Love Podcast.

I’m just editing the next two instalments to drop next week and I created a quote for myself which I will share here to end.

My tender heart has been broken many times but, at the same time, I know my healing lives and breathes in the openness of my tender heart.

Sheree Mack

No More Monday Morning Blues

| Sheree

When I was teaching, I used to experience ‘Monday Morning Blues’. That dreaded feeling of going back to the grind after the weekend off. Going back to the bells and the timetables and the disruptive kids. One of the many reasons to leave the profession without a safety net in place, without anything lined up, was that I knew if I didn’t go then, I’d never get out. I was getting too comfortable, too used to the regular pay check at the end of each month, justifying the slog, the staying put within an environment that was slowly eating away at my soul.

I used to see cows outside my classroom window and I vowed not to become one of them; a cow put out to pasture, giving up on life and life giving up on them. I knew there was more to life that the 9-5 job, or as it was when teaching 7-7 job. I put my whole life, heart and soul into that job to the point of probably neglecting my child at the time. But I was after perfectionism, acceptance and recognition. I was defining my whole self -worth by how good or bad I was at teaching. And teaching shite I may add. Shite filled up with the words and opinions of mostly white dead men who probably didn’t think much of me being a Black woman.

I was duped into the belief that work was meant to be hard and difficult and long and mostly unrewarding. It was what we were put on the earth to do, to be. To work for most of of our lives for others, propping up the system and if we worked hard enough, we’d get time off at the end with a pension that would be taxed again. This is what I bought into and what was fed to me through family, education and society. To step out of this construction to pursue creativity, to do my own things and be my own boss was seen as weird, a risk, stupidity and misguided to say the least.

I knew how I felt. And I know how I feel. And even then I put a lot of store by how I felt. How I was uncomfortable in my own skin. How I felt a fraud. How I felt unbelonging and always striving for something that would never be mine. Acceptance. Whiteness. The Norm.

Now I don’t have ‘Monday Morning Blues’, because I don’t put that kind of pressure on my days, on my weekends, on my time. I pick and choose when to work or not. I try to have a 3 day week. Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday being the work days and the Monday and Friday flow into a long weekend.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not idle. I’ll always be practicing my creativity ( I prefer using practice to work). I don’t think I’ll ever retire because being creative is who I am. And when I reserve certain days of the week for outside commitments, ‘work’ the other days are mine to create, to rest, to dream, to plot, to {BE}. And I’m grateful for the circumstance to be able to {BE} this way. I’m also grateful to my younger self who wasn’t afraid to jump and believe and trust that a net would appear to catch her fall. Again and again.

I’m quote proud to say I’m being useless to capitalism today. And the next day and the next.

Everything is Possible

| Sheree

This year, I’m being brave by saying ‘yes’ to the things that light me up from the inside out. This will help with gaining clarity around what I’m doing. The things that are worth doing are the things that bring me pure joy.

I’m being brave by putting my trust in myself. To get rid of the doubt and questioning of self and to trust that I’ve always got my best interests at heart.

I bravely offer myself grace instead of judgements, making peace with myself as I’m tired of the battle. Instead of fighting myself, my instincts and my best interests, I’m gonna be loving on myself at every opportunity.

What does this look like in practice? I don’t know. But I’ll know what it feels like because I’ll be glowing and full of joy.

What will support me on this brave journey is my creativity. And offering myself creative solutions to problems and issues. Sobriety will help. Along with water inside and outside of my body. And rest and journaling and healing slowly and deeply.

Deciding to love oneself unconditionally is bravery especially when one lives in a world, a dominating system which doesn’t recognise one’s worth beyond oppression and exploitation.

I’m brave to keep on keeping on.

Hello 2023 with Creation and Healing

| Sheree
The Earthcraft Oracle

Welcome to 2023. Wow. We got here quick with 2022 flying by. I wonder what 2023 has in store for us all?

I eased into the first day of 2023, after a lie-in, with breath work, meditation and intention setting. For the life I envision, I need to invite in the energy of calm and peace.

I know (re)starting my gratitude practice will support me in this endeavour. No matter how small, taking a moment to give thanks, a small act of presence, mindfulness, and care is a gift I could be giving to myself daily. So why do I resist or forget and allow this practice to disappear from my life?

Fear. And that belief that I’m not worth healing. That I don’t deserve happiness and peace. It’s time to switch up my thinking and ways of treating myself.

I pulled the womb card today from The Earthcraft Oracle. I’ve been pulling one card a day for months now, and today does not fail to chime with how I’m feeling or send me the message I’ve been listening for.

The womb is the centre of all creation. The womb holds all the potential. This card comes into my life today of all days to remind me how to awaken my sacral chakra. To lean into creation as here there is healing. Create and heal are the same thing.

To create, one must imagine something that has never been. To heal, one must be willing to embrace a new way of being.

The Earthcraft Oracle Guidebook

On the first day of the year 2023, I take on board this message and practice to stimulate my creative centre and bring forth inspiration and healing for myself, and for those who came before me and for those who come after me. Ashe.

The Releasing

| Sheree

This space is to remember the losses, the challenges and struggles of 2022. This is the space to let go and surrender to what has gone, goodbye and what is here now.

The releasing is a practice, a continuing practice, but I have to start somewhere.

2022 saw me release my fantasy of marriage. Holding onto the dreams and hopes of that relationship. The certainty of marriage and that promises of growing old with someone I loved; I let go of. What is the point of pining after something that was never going to happen and missing out on the life I have now? The life I’m creating for myself, day by day, money by moment.

I’m letting go of my need for control. Micro-managing everybody and every situation is tiring and no longer needed. I’m ready to embrace the unknown.

Lensa AI

I release my need and desire for love from others, love from someone else because I know the love I need has to come from myself, first and foremost.

And I release all those secrets and lies that I’ve been holding onto as a means of control and as a means of protection. I lay down my guard, opening as I am ready to listen and learn.