Dear Future Self – Day 21

April 21, 2025 | Sheree

Dear Future Self

I hope you are well. Or as well as you can be, as I know you have a tendency to fall out of love with yourself. Waste time on not looking after yourself and beat yourself up for it too.

I just hope you’re learning because, at the moment, I think you’re doing remarkably well. You’re still here aren’t you? You’re still smiling? So you must be doing something good.

And even if you’re not, just remember that you are good. Good enough just the way you are. For reals.

And I know you have your current worries and concerns. No doubt worrying about where your next pay check is coming from and do you have to compromise your integrity to get it.

But listen, I know you and I know you always find a way. Because you are a fighter. You’re resourceful and determined and you love life far too much to just give up on it. To just give up on yourself.

I just love how you’re living your life on your own terms not being worried about what others think about you or what they might say.

I just love how you’re striving for what makes you happy to hell with everyone else. This is inspiring. This is you.

This year has seen you really lean into a morning routine to set you up for the rest of the day. And it’s been rewarding to see how this has helped you to move forward.

I say continue on this path of making sure your needs and wants are met each and every day first as this puts you in the best position to then help and support others.

Simple small things like enjoying that first cup of coffee. Listening to Love Devotion on repeat in Insight Timer. Small things that might seem insignificant but actually remind you that you are loved, loving and loveable by yourself, first and foremost.

And then look for that love from others as it is there. The love. It’s always there. Love.

Keep following those sparks that reveal joy. Which make you light up from the inside out. Solitude and quiet, just as much as company and music. Getting out in nature and moving that wonderful body of yours.

Someone said to you recently that life is long, instead of thinking of life being short, too short, so seize the moment now. And that still holds true but to think of life being long is to not only savour it now and to be grateful for it, it also means that we never really leave or die. We just transform and transcend into someone or something else in time. Over time. Through time.

This opens up whole new portals and possibilities and is exciting. Therefore, no need to panic or rush or run around like a chicken with no head. You’re okay resting, taking that afternoon nap, without fear of missing out.

Everything goes into the mix to make up this weird and wonderful life. You’ve just got to remain open, baby. You’ve just got to keep that beautiful heart of your open and welcome whatever comes your way. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Everything of this beautiful terrible life is welcome here because it is yours. Your terrifyingly beautiful life.

So go live it now hun. Go {BE}.

Love you

Sheree

The Core Parts Of Me

March 6, 2025March 5, 2025 | Sheree

Growing up, and I still feel as if I’m growing up or at least progressing in this process of becoming, but yes growing up, I constantly rejected core parts of myself in order to fit in, in order to be accepted and loved. There was also an element of protection too. Growing up I knew or sensssd that being too wild and too unresostrcted and out there could bring trouble my way. Be looked up, be beaten up, be killed.

But I’m not prepared to repress, reject core parts of myself anymore. I don’t do it anymore because all it does it hurt me and stops me living my life on my own terms. Living y life to it’s fullest potential because I’m focused on the fear and rejection instead.

It has taken years and practice for me to take down the internal prejudices against myself. They might have been fortification constructed for protection and rejection but they did not serve me then and certainly don’t serve me now. Yeah I still protect myself from harm. I think I got complacent recently with the sea and also within the recent counselling skills session, but I’m practicing this from a place of love, self-love rather than self-hate and disgust. And the feelings are totally different.

Birthright

January 14, 2025 | Sheree

Our body-temples are divinely designed to restore themselves, but we must rest in order to do so. For rest is not a reward…it is our birthright. And rest helps us to indulge in soft sacred spaces where we are reminded that we are intrinsically worthy of love, concern, care, and pleasure. – Sensual Faith, Lyvonne Briggs

Breathe

November 6, 2024 | Sheree

Breathe with me

And again breathe

And one more time, deeper. Breathe.

Self-Portraiture – Day 3

March 12, 2024March 9, 2024 | Sheree

May our collective belonging weave a wide net of compassionate care, soft and strong
enough to hold us all.
@CollectiveBelonging

Using Today As A Catch -Up Day

July 20, 2023 | Sheree

Amber Royal Serena Estelle Musgrove Mason Melgram, Nana Amber, circa 1955

It’s what I do right. When I’ve been absent from the blogs, websites and zines, absent from the public realm, then I take a day out of my schedule to catch -up with them all. To post something, to let my readers know that I’m still here. Still alive and kicking. When I get my bum in the seat and force myself to write, something comes along to fill in the blank spaces. And today is no exception.

I’ve been dancing around cyberspace, updating my spaces with words and reflections and memories.

So for now I’d just like to point you in the direction of Studio Notes over on Substack where I’ve just posted about my nana Amber. For some reason, she’s been on my mind this week, and there at the smell of brown bread from the kitchen she comes back fully to life. Check it out and if you feel inclined, add a comment or even become a subscriber, free or paid.

All is welcome.

End of June Reflections

June 26, 2023 | Sheree

How do you practice self-care?

Visual Journal May/June 2023

As we near the end of June, I near the end of my current visual journal. This beauty has seen me through some ups and downs these past two months, as I’ve navigated major life changes and shifts.

Being able to keep coming back to the page in order to work out my shit, my internal shit, before I meet all the external shit is a gift. Is a massive gift I take for myself in the name of self-care.

Before visual journaling came along, I did keep a journal but it was maybe a lined notebook sometimes plain paper and pen. Simple and effective and got me through a lot of life’s changes.

But when 2015 came along and my life changed forever, words on the plain page would never be enough again. Could never be enough to express all the turbulence and upheavals within my life. I needed more and I also needed to feel safe.

So paints and images and quotes and collage and photography and text came together, merged and played off of one another to provide the time and space and safety I needed to have an ongoing, developing and becoming conversation with myself.

I feel blessed now to know I get to do this / {BE} this daily. I give myself the opportunity to get off this merry-go-round of life and take deeper breaths, while being in communion with myself, checking in on myself, making sure I’m okay and if not what I need to do in order to get back to being okay. But all in good time and a few visual journal spreads later.

This is one of my self-care practices which I am truly grateful for.

I’ll be sharing some more spreads, images and reflections on this process over the summer as this practice is multifaceted in terms of all the goodness of offers me. I gain insight, clarity and love in the present moment of the practice. But I also gain a lot of joy in the looking back over pages, reliving the feelings within my body of the practice. I also gain pleasure from sharing this practice with others.

Check out further posts to come.