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Sophie Messager

Category: consciousness

  • Stressed? Overwhelmed? Try grounding.

    Stressed? Overwhelmed? Try grounding.

    If you are finding what’s happening in your life or the world overwhelming, Iā€™m sure you know about breathing and meditation as tools for wellbeing (and you might have tried them and found that they do not work for you) but have you heard about grounding?

    Grounding is simply using techniques to come back into your body, where you can process things better rather than when stuck in the thoughts in your head. You can ground yourself literally, by connecting yourself to the earth, literally, or by visualization or movement. It works because it brings you back to your body, and out of the stressed thoughts in your mind.

    How can you do it?

    • Literal grounding means putting your body in contact with the earth. Grounding is the earthing of our own energy to the energy field of the Earth. There is some really cool science behind it. We know that earthing helps people heal faster, having measurable effects on inflammation, the immune response, wound healing, and prevention and treatment of chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. See this paper for example. Ā There is also evidence that it reduces stress.
    • If you want to learn more, the earthing movie is fantastic and covers much of the research, some of which really blew my mind. They also have a bunch of articles on the topic.
    • The easiest (and cheapest) way to to earth your body is to put your bare feet on the grass or soil. My favourite way to do it is to do some year round wild swimming, because it provides a deeper, whole body experience.
    • My favourite way to do a full body grounding is wild swimming. I do it year round (about to do my fourth winter) and you can read about that here.
    • If bare feet on the ground or swimming in cold water doesnā€™t appeal or if you live somewhere where this might be difficult, there are companies selling grounding mats that plug into the earthing part of electric sockets, for example Grounding Mats and Groundology. Some of the published research that demonstrates faster wound healing for example, was done using such mats in a hospital setting.

    Less literal grounding, as in coming back into your body can be achieved in several ways.

    • Using visualization. A simple visualization to achieve it is the tree meditation. It goes like this: Stand up, close your eyes, give your body and mind a quick scan (how do you feel etc). Then imagine that you are a tree. Visualise the tree in as many details as you can. Then, with each out breath, imagine that you are growing your roots deep into the earth. That’s it! do this for a couple of minutes, then scan yourself again. Be prepared to be amazed at the difference!
    • Using mindful movement. For example going for a walk and paying attention to what you see and feel (bonus if itā€™s in nature, especially somewhere with trees, because forest bathing also has cool published health benefits behind it).
    • Another sure way of bringing yourself back to your body is to put some lively music on and dance for a few minutes. I love 5rhythms dancing and this track, which is only 7 min long, gives you a mini wave like a very short version of a movement meditation class.
    • Do a quick rebozo or scarf self massage! This only takes 2 to 5 min. This really moves the energy in your body and refresh and enliven you!

    Try it! It only takes about 5 minutes to make a difference. If you do try some of these techniques, Iā€™d love to hear about your experience!

     

  • Getting out of overwhelm

    Getting out of overwhelm

    A few years ago I started my journey out of overwhelm. I was overworked and stressed and I didnā€™t know how to get out of the cycle. I was trying to work harder out of it. It was so bad that I remember stopping to pick some berries on a week day on my way home and feeling guilty because I felt I ought to be working.

    I was stuck into a mindset where my productivity and my worth were mixed up, and I wasn’t even aware of it.

    Luckily I embarked on a coaching programme with Bonny Williams. As part of the programme, Bonny challenged me to spend one hour a week doing something called soft play. The idea of soft play was to spend an hour doing something nourishing and fun, alone.

    At first I struggled to find what to do. Bonny suggested I think about what I enjoyed as a child. I remembered I loved being in nature, build dens, that kind of stuff. I can vividly remember my first soft play: I went for a walk to the local nature reserve, alone, on a week day, when I ā€œshouldā€ have been working. I had a lot of stuff to do that and I very nearly didnā€™t go. But I did, and it felt great and oddly rebellious. And, oddly enough, that day I managed to do everything on my to do list and I felt great.

    Fast forward 3 years, this has become part of my new routine, and had spread new fantastic new habits like year round river swimming, and drumming in the woods and 5 rhythms dancing. I’ve realised this is so important that Ā days I put the time in nature as the first task on my weekly to do list. And you know what? Magic has happened! I feel a more relaxed, creative and productive than ever. I also have a lot more fun. In fact Iā€™m so elated with the results Iā€™m planning to create a course sharing my experience.

    The bottom line is this: You can cannot get out of the overwhelm created by working hard by working harder. Let me say this again: you cannot get out of overwhelm by working harder.

    Instead, to create spaciousness in your life and more balance with play, you need to let yourself experience that play and spaciousness inside. Once you start experiencing this, all sorts of magic will unfold by itself and you will not look back.

  • The vision board, an alternative way to plan what you want

    The vision board, an alternative way to plan what you want

    Today I’ve spent the whole morning making a vision board for this year.

    It feels Ā that I’ve been procrastinating doing this for over 2 weeks now, and suddenly felt the urge this morning, which is the first full moon of the year, and a powerful one at that, a good time to set intentions.

    I’ve been doing this for 4 years now.

    I started doing this as an alternative, no actually, as a rebellion against the typical masculine-orientated process of making a list/bullet point/gannt charts and suchlike.

    Once upon a time I was a control freak scientist who adored excel and Gannt charts. I was extremely process driven, I never forgot a thing, and was irritated beyond belief by people who didn’t prepare and plan things in advance or forgot stuff.

    The birth of my first child rewired my brain, and led to my leaving my scientist career to become a doula. You can read about that here.

    My creativity went through the roof and my organisation skills kind of decreased at the same time. I’m am so much happier for it!

    The only problem was, I didn’t know how to organise things except in the way I had been taught.

    The first couple of years of my self employed life I rode on the wave of excitement and novelty, so things were effortless and easy.

    Then a couple of years later, I felt overworked and out of control.

    What I didn’t realise at the time, was that the process I was using was a male one, a linear one, and that it didn’t suit who I was anymore.

    So I started experimenting with more fluid, intuitive, creative, and feminine ways of working.

    Making a vision board was such a process.

    Here’s how I do it:

    I gather a bunch of old magazines (I need quite a lot so I accumulate them over the years, many being free magazines I grab in local cafes etc).

    I set my intention of what I want this vision board to be for (for me, it’s what I’d like more of in my life this year, but you could use it for something entirely different).

    It’s nice to meditate before you start, especially about how you’d like to feel, rather than setting targets for now.

    Then I sit at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, and flick through the magazine and rip any page that has a picture that appeals to me. I am completely intuitive about this, I’m not analysing it.

    After I’ve got enough pictures, I then cut them nicely using a rotary trimmer and scissors. As I do this I discard some pictures already.

    I lay a large piece of flipchart paper on the table, then arrange all by themes. Some pictures don’t make the cut.

    I visualise what each picture means for me as I set them in place. It’s quite vague at this stage but it feels important to do that. It doesn’t have to be logical or fully fledged either, usually at this stage it’s just an idea.

    Finally I glue all the pictures in place, and set the finished vision board in a prominent place in my house.

    Over the last 3 years I’ve been doing this, as I look at the board from time to time, it’s fascinating to see how what I visualised has manifested itself, often in different ways to what I had imagined, but manifested itself nevertheless.

    I wrote this to encourage others to try it and I’d love to hear, or even better, see, what you come up with and what effects it has for you.

    Here’s what the one I made today looks like.

     

  • Today I give myself permission to do nothing

    Today I give myself permission to do nothing

    Today is the first day of my cycle.

    Since attending a menstrual cycle workshop with Alexandra Pope of Red SchoolĀ a couple of years ago, I have come to understand that that the first couple of days of my cycle are days when I need to retreat into myself and do very little.

    Last month I started writing a blog like this and didn’t finish it. Then I wasted my day not getting much done all but not really giving myself when I had promised myself not to, and not feeling great of it.

    So today I am giving myself permission to do nothing.

    In a world that glorifies busy, it’s nothing short of revolutionary.

    I have a to do list as long as my arm and frankly tons of shit to do (who doesn’t?), but I know that by giving myself time to retreat inwards, look after myself in nurturing ways and ignoring most of what doesn’t absolutely needs to be done today, will help me recharge and actually be more productive in the next few days.

    Just like I’m usually full of ideas after a holiday (only whilst on holiday I don’t actually realise how much good the relaxation is doing me until I return to work and all these new ideas come flowing).

    Today, I need to shut myself from the world and go inside my cave.

    I’m going to do stuff that makes me feel good, like sit and meditate and self treat with Reiki, have a long bath with a special blend of essential oils that I like to use during my cycle (I also massage my tummy with it every day whilst I’m bleeding- my favourite blend is the sacral chakra blend from Katseye blends), I might wrap my hips and abdomen with a rebozo, and pack a heated wheat bag in it too. I’ll make myself some comforting and nourishing foods and probably watch a feel good movie.

    I’m not technically really going to do nothing, but I’ll only do what absolutely needs to be done today and ignore the rest, just for today.

    In the menstrual cycle workshop, Alexandra compared the menstrual cycle to the 4 seasons of the year, and the bleeding time is very much like winter: the trees are bare, the soil is bare, so it looks like everything is dead and nothing good is happening. But this all needs to happen, and whilst it looks barren, potent stuff is happening underneath, to prepare for new growth.

    That time, going inwards whilst it looks like nothing is happening on the outside, is a very powerful time.

    Our culture doesn’t want to see the winter woman, it only wants to see the sunny spring and summer woman.

    And yet so much power lies in the dark, retreating times.

    You can choose to see this time as a pile of poo, or you can choose to see it as manure.