Tag: Self-Love

Healing, Inspiration, Self-Love, Spirituality

We are Grieving and It’s Okay.

Erin Keane

My husband and I sat down to watch Netflix. Last Tuesday, our kids were finally in bed and we were having a chance to connect and talk about how we are feeling about all the things that are happening in our world, and in our personal life. We live in Massachusetts. The schools closed on Thursday March 12, 2020. As everything was happening I was feeling fearful, worried. I couldn’t get my mind around what was going on. I worried about my kids, and wanting to make sure they were safe. I worried about my parents and their well-being. I worried. Plain and simple I was laced in anxiety. I tried my best to keep myself busy and distracted. But my body kept holding the fear. And I got tired from it…

How have you been?

Days went by, and on this particular Tuesday night that my husband and I were talking we expressed how life felt completely unhinged, upside-down. He asked, “Are you still feeling fear?” And I said, “Not as much, I think I’m just really sad. But it’s more than sadness. I think what we are feeling is GRIEF.” And he said, “Yes, I think you are right.” Grief, hu? Yes, grief. Today my 10 year old son asked me why he feels this weird feeling inside himself? And I asked him to tell me about it. Then I said, “You are feeling grief.” We talked about how we felt when our Dog died unexpectedly from a heart attack this past summer. He said, “Well, it’s not exactly like that kind of hurt.” And I shared, well no it’s not. We loved him. That’s a different kind of grief. But what we felt then is still a bit like what we are feeling now. We are feeling an unxpected loss. We have lost what “feeling normal,” feels like. We miss our friends, our activities, our freedom to go about our town, and to travel and look forward to things. We miss the life that we used to have. I imagine we all do. In fact, if you are feeling grief, it might not just be coming from within you. It is also coming from the vibration of the world. Because we are all interconnected, we all feel each other’s grief; the world’s vibration carries grief right now. And since most of us have more time to sit and reflect and be aware of our thoughts our bodies are actually telling us what we are feeling and holding inside ourselves. So we notice our feelings even more.

How are you doing?

So now what? How do you tend to your grief? You recognize and give yourself permission to feel this grief; you feel the sadness, fear, discomfort, etc. Don’t dismiss it. You do what you need to do to love yourself through this. Imagine what you’d do for a grieving family member or best friend. And do this same thing for yourself. Offer yourself compassion: “It’s okay to be feeling this.” I’ve been sitting with my grief these days. And working at tending to myself. I find that writing has been a place for me to release some of the sadness I feel. Writing this post is helping me right now. It gives me a place to feel connected. All of us being here together is healing. I imagine many of you are finding ways to release your feelings too. If not, do something out of the ordinary for yourself and be creative. If you can, go outside and listen to birds singing or notice something you haven’t before.

What are you doing to tend to yourself?

Be gentle with yourself. Know that it is okay to feel what you do. It is okay to grieve. It is okay to be you. You are created with divine design. You are formed from LOVE.


And as you go about your day. Offer yourself love. Offer someone you care for some love. And let your love heal you, and as you do this your love will help change the vibration of the world…

And you will begin to heal. We will all begin to heal together.

Blessings of healing and kindness upon you, Erin

©️2012-2020. Erin Keane. Bella Bleue. All rights reserved. No portion of any post or photo may be copied or reproduced without prior written permission from the author, Erin Keane. Find me on Instagram @Erins_blessings and at Facebook Bella Bleue Healing by Erin Keane

Author’s Note:
***We all have different reactions of how to handle what we are feeling. And my professional experience as a hospital Chaplain, has taught me each of us grieve differently. So we each have to work at accepting our friends and family with love and being supportive to each other as we are grieving. Even if the way you grieve is different from your partner’s, parent’s, friend’s etc. way of grieving. We all need each other right now. So supporting one another is deeply important to our healing.

Healing, Inspiration, Prayer, Spirituality

Be Kind to Yourself: A Blessing of Self Love

Erin Keane

These are hard days. I find myself getting weary as the evening falls upon us. The days are filled with daylight and busyness with my children. They are good distractions from the internal story I hold. But when evening comes, my mind quiets and I begin to feel all the confusion my body is holding. The confusion that wonders, how is all this real? This virus has altered life so suddenly. ..

How are you?

There was no way to prepare for how this would feel and there is no playbook to tell us how we will feel tomorrow and the next day; the only thing you can do is feel what is inside yourself at any given moment. And whatever you feel is okay. It’s real. .

You are not alone. I’m right here with you feeling it too. Each of us is right here with you, feeling it too. So be kind to yourself, and allow yourself to feel. You are amazing!

And I honor you for your honesty of being you. I honor the divinity of you.

~Namaste🦋

How are you doing today?

I hold space for you. We all hold space for you.

.

Blessings upon you & all that you hold & feel, Erin

©️2012-2020. Erin Keane. Bella Bleue. All rights reserved. No portion of any post or photo may be copied or reproduced without prior written permission from the author, Erin Keane. Find me on Instagram @Erins_blessings and at Facebook Bella Bleue Healing by Erin Keane

Self-Love, Spirituality

Listen to the Whispers in Your Heart

Erin Keane

Happy New Year!

As you awaken to a new decade of your life, my hope for you is that you may more fully discover yourself and love yourself more deeply.

New Years Blessing 2020

You have whispers in your heart,
They call to you,
LISTEN…
they are the messages of LOVE,
the echoes of your creation,
reminding you
of who you truly are.
BE STILL.
Wait.
You feel yourself connecting
reaching,
being held by this LOVE
The LOVE that formed you
birthed you into creation,
This LOVE is the Eternal,
it is the light of divine imagination
dwelling inside you
It beams from you and unites you
with the light of others,
Interconnected
throughout all eternity.
Embrace these whispers
for they are LOVE speaking to you.
Allow this LOVE
to be with you,
to hold you
to carry you
to guide you
and awaken you
to Yourself.

Blessings,
Erin

©️2020. Erin Keane. Bella Bleue. All rights reserved. No portion of any post or photo may be copied or reproduced without prior written permission from the author, Erin Keane.

Connecting to the wonder we are, Inspiration

You’re Just So Good

Erin Keane

“You are such a good person.” “Your dog is such a good boy.” “You are such a good friend.” “You always take good care of your plants.” There are so many times a day that we say someone or something is GOOD.   Having positive feelings and acknowledging the “Good” around you and in your life opens yourself to accepting and loving yourself and others more deeply. But I wonder, for all the goodness around you, how often do you look at yourself and say, deep down inside, “I am good?” 

I know for me that believing and saying  this statement can be challenging at times. I often ask myself: “Am I good mother? Am I a good wife? Am I good believer? Am I a good person?” It can be so frustrating that negativity sneaks into our hearts and minds at times, and does its best to try to beat us down. So how do you change this belief so that you can really believe you are good?

I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately. My son is three-years old now, and I’m noticing how much my reactions to him seem to effect the way he views himself. I’ve been trying to be encouraging, as he attempts to do new things, like potty-training, even when he is unsuccessful or stubborn. I am intentional about saying to him, “Good Job;” or “You are being a good boy.” We’ve put stars on a chart when he is successful in his endeavors, and provide him with praise. But sometimes, I fail and get frustrated, and express my disappointment.  And I notice his face will become sullen, and then I begin to judge myself, and wonder, “Am I taking away from his ability to trust in himself as good?” Here I am as a mom, trying to instill deep within my son, that he is a good person. I want him to trust in this as his truth. I want him to believe deep down inside, “I am good.”  So that no matter what he faces in his life such as let downs, mean people, or a break-up, that he can trust in his inherent goodness. 

I wanted to divulge deeper into this because this sense of goodness  is not just about me or about my son, but about all of us. It’s a question each of us ask ourselves, no matter how absolutely perfect or imperfect we believe we are.

So, here I am working on it. And I turn back to the words, I just wrote: “inherent goodness*.”  Inherent means, “existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute.” (Online definition). I am good. You are good. I was created with goodness deep down inside. You were created with goodness deep down inside. But its not just deep down inside—your goodness is a part of your being…it’s in your eyes, your heart, your mind, your feet, your ankles, and elbows, it’s even in hairs on your head. And if this goodness is all over you, then you must be “Good.”  There’s no getting around it, as long as you can trust in it.

But! of course I get in my own way, and I don’t trust, saying, “Well, you might be good, but you are broken too. You aren’t always so wonderful to be around. And at times you can be really mean.” And then my day, turns the corner and I’m back to forgetting about my wonderful, amazing, “inherent goodness.”  It is this on-going battle that can be harmful if the power is given to the negative. I realize that embracing inner goodness, comes from acknowledging that we need guidance about what can be harmful to us, as well as, affirmations about what can be helpful to us, so that we don’t get stuck in this on-going battle of am I good, enough? Thus, begins the answer, to the question: How can I believe that I am good?

I can trust that I am good, even when I feel I am broken, or mean, by admitting when I am wrong, by asking for some guidance when I need to change my inner direction towards that which is good, rather than the negative; and to recognize that celebrating my inner goodness also means I need to have a healthy balance between my expressions of frustration and affirmation. For example, I need to remind myself that my feelings of anger, or frustration do not change my goodness…these feelings are here for a reason when they occur, but I need to let them go, so they do not consume me, and I need to reconnect to my deeper goodness—which for me is also my connection to God.

How would you answer the question, How can I believe I am good? 

  • Take some time and reflect by imagining a circle where I am good is at the top of the circle, and you create your answers along the path of the circle, that bring you back to your truth: I am good.

——————————————————————
*Inherent goodness, as I am using it, also means that there is a deeper longing in us to connect to the Sacred, that which is truly good.

Blessings, Erin, Bella Bleue
©Bella Bleue Healing, Health & Inspiration for Your Life™ All Rights Reserved.

Connecting to the wonder we are, Health, Life

Show Your Body Love: Creating a Ritual of Tenderness and Self Love

Erin Keane

Your face holds the stories of who you are, and where you’ve been. They are the stories that lie deep within your bones, your cells, your very being. These stories might not be visible to the eye with a look or a glance; those who see you may be completely unaware of how much you hold inside. Of course your whole body holds your story, but there is something extremely tender about how your face holds your pain,your joy, your excitement, your fear,  and so on. When you cry, the tears fall down your cheeks. When you laugh the sound comes from your voice, but your smile lights up your face. When you give and receive love, so often your face is a deep part of that connection.

Do you truly take time to notice yourself and tenderly care for your body?

I see myself in the mirror every day. I comb my hair, brush my teeth, wash my face, put on my make-up and go about my day. And I think very little about my body, nor how much better I feel after I care for myself, because doing these things are a normal part of the day and often done in a rush. But today, I paused for a moment as I dabbed the face-soap onto my hand and looked at my face, and said to myself,”Hey, there.” As if it was the first time I’d seen myself in a long time. And I thought,wait a minute why does this feel so strange? 

I looked down again at my hand with the soap, and came back to reality: the task at hand: Washing my face. I had to think for a second though, how do I do this, wash my face? Usually I turn the water on first, rinse my face off, and then put the soap on my fingers. But not this time. Maybe I was being more intentional about connecting with myself because of my glance in the mirror; or maybe it was the sensation of splashing water on my face with one hand. Whatever it was, I paused, gently began to rub the soap along my cheeks, and suddenly became profoundly aware of the  connection between my fingers touching my cheeks and my face receiving the tenderness of my touch.

As I stood there with my eyes closed and moved my hands around my face I began to have a knowing of my face through my finger tips: my cheek bones, my brow, the softness of my skin. The touch of my fingers awakened me to understanding why my glance in the mirror stuck me. I so often forget to take care of myself, and offer myself gentleness and love.  Touching my face with this love, intentionality and awareness connected me to my life, my story, who I am right now. This is the face people look at, and see through their eyes. My face quite often is how people remember me and make sense of who I am at first glance. But as I washed my face, I realized this wasn’t what was speaking to me. Touching my face with this gentle love, became less about how I was going to look to the outside world, and more about the deeper parts of me.

Love and connection.

  • Touch your face and be mindful about each and every bone, curve, bump
  • Hold your face in your hands for as long as you need to, to really feel and be aware of your story within.
  • Send yourself love, reverence, compassion through your hands, and thoughts

I’m learning and working on loving myself better every day. Sometimes I’m not so good at it, other times I get a gold star for effort. Today, I learned something important for me. To release the pain, the stress, tension I need to touch my face with intentionality and compassion. I need to hold my face in my hands and focus my heart and my thoughts towards self-love and reverence.

Usually, washing my face is a daily task, but I am going to be better at being mindful to practice it as a ritual. (I’ve included washing my face as part of the ritual to help me sleep at night, but never with the intentionality and mindfulness I am starting with today). Not only will washing my face be a ritual of letting go of the things that I want to wash away, so that I can find peace, but it will also be a symbolic action and mindfulness towards self-love.

Ahhh…I am already beginning to feel better.

How about you?

What do you do to offer yourself self-love: loving your mind, body and spirit?

Blessings, Erin, Bella Bleue
©Bella Bleue Healing, Health & Inspiration for Your Life™ All rights reserved.

Life, Spirituality

Please: Just Try to be Patient with ME!

Erin Keane

It was one of those days. The kind of day when everyone needs you, kind of day. All you hear from the ends of every corner you try to hide in: “I need you, Mama!” And every time you get a moment of “alone-time” (which really is a figment of you imagination) the dog or cat come find you–and of course need to be pet or taken outside. So you literally want to scream! and of course catch the first plane to a secluded island of paradise, but you regain your senses and you grab a hold of the reins of your life: and you patiently respond: “Here I am. What do you need? How can I help you?”

I’m sure we’ve all had days and moments when it seems like no matter where we turn someone needs us or life is making us wait for something we hope will be better.  Whatever these moments are like they require our patience. Patience: that ‘wonderful’ virtue that life tells us to work at each day…well that is if we want to.

“Patience (or forbearing) is the state of endurance under difficult circumstances, which can mean persevering in the face of delay or provocation without acting on annoyance/anger in a negative way; or exhibiting forbearance when under strain, especially when faced with longer-term difficulties. Patience is the level of endurance one can take before negativity. It is also used to refer to the character trait of being steadfast.”    —Wikipedia

So as the day went on I did try and work at not being negative: I smiled, let my son climb all over me while I tried to type, played games, made dinner and all the usual housewife stuff with out getting angry at all…

Well, I guess I did show some frustration and raised my voice, a couple times. But I did wait it out until I got to boiling point—(which totally defeats the logic behind being patient). And then as quickly as I let it out, I put all those feelings of negativity and frustration aside and smiled again.

How are you with patience? Is it something easy or challenging for you?

When I used to go to work daily, I was really good at patience. I believed patience was defining of my character and I had to be flawless. No matter how rough or intense the situation was at work, I remained calm and serene.  I credited myself for this virtue. And people affirmed my ability to be patient.

But the problem was, I was so patient at work, i.e., I had a really high endurance for staying positive and calm even when I was frustrated or overwhelmed, that I didn’t release any of these feelings (frustration, etc.) during the day. So the negative feelings would show up at home when I felt annoyed about a house chore or responsibility; and these feelings would be released in the communication between my husband and I.  Which of course did not do wonders for our relationship.

Now that I have been away from my work environment for 8 months, I realize that although being patient at work was a virtue I prided myself on…I was not good at taking care of myself because I didn’t have a healthy outlet to release my exhaustion, frustration, or negativity that sometimes was welling up inside me while I was being patient. And I am reminded  that I am still not really taking care of myself because I experience these negative feelings when I’m at home from time to time, and I’m still not always good at creating an outlet to release them.

Do you have a way to take care of yourself when you feel exhausted from being patient?

Today I’ve come to realize that I can offer patience over and over, and continue to put on my smile for everyone, but if I am not taking care of myself while being patient, then I am doing no one a service. When I start feeling frustrated or I get impatient: wanting things to change right then and there, I get down on myself. For example, I often get the idea that I should be able to be all these things: a patient worker, a patient mother, a patient wife, a patient caregiver, a patient believer, a patient follower, etc.

But as I’ve been writing this I realize I’m doing the best I can, right? So if I have the patience for other people to be imperfect and I have the patience to wait for them to figure things out shouldn’t I offer the same kind of patience to myself? WHY OF COURSE I SHOULD. So there’s a bit of wisdom I’ve discovered. Now I just need to act on it.

What about you? Are you good at being patient with yourself when life isn’t going exactly the way you want it to, or when you just can’t seem to get life right? Are you able to provide yourself with compassion and patience while you are working on healing or recovery?  I’m going to work on all these things starting today.

We all deserve to love ourselves and one of the ways to do this is to offer ourselves the gift of patience. A gift of patience that says: “I’m not perfect, and there’s no way I can be. I am always healing, always learning, always growing…Learning to love myself and my life is an ongoing process every day.”

I truly believe that when we are patient with each other, and patient with ourselves: by allowing healing to take the time it needs to, by allowing ourselves to feel different emotions, and by allowing ourselves to take as much time to grow and develop as we need to, we will all be happier, healthier people. And Life in general will be a much more pleasant experience for us all.

So offer yourself the gift of patience.  And be well.

…and as I finish this post my son is running around the house and playing his drums…breathe…”Patience is a Virtue.” Breathe again. Smile. Amen. 

He finally went to sleep. Now I get to edit. And the house is quiet. I really worked at being patient with myself and my son today, and it seems to be paying off. And my husband was patient with me tonight too, and said, “Go ahead and work on your post” while I clean up after dinner. Wow! What a gift. I guess being patient does pay off sometimes!

Blessings, Erin, Bella Bleue

Related articles:
Be Patient with Yourself by Steve Pavlina
How to be Patient

©Bella Bleue Healing, Health & Inspiration for Your Life™ All rights reserved.

Healing, Inspiration

Allow Yourself to be Proud of You!

Erin Keane

Every one of us is filled with special gifts. We all are unique in our own special way. When you give yourself permission to feel pride within your heart, body and mind for your gifts, you can create a sense of gratitude within your being.  When you actually feel this gratitude, you are giving yourself love, and acceptance.  Being proud of yourself encourages a positive sense of yourself. As you feel proud of yourself more, you begin to love yourself more deeply. As you love yourself more deeply, you begin to treat yourself with more dignity and respect.

In this day and age, we are either encouraged to show our pride, which often can be misinterpreted for boasting, or we are shamed, and told not to be proud of our accomplishments because it can be seen as boasting.  (See Glennon Melton’s Post about Bragging Rights). Either way it’s really difficult to win. But the truth is you can win by being grateful for your gifts—i.e. humility. Being grateful allows you to feel good about yourself. When we are able to feel good about who we are, feeling proud no longer becomes a ‘bragging right,’ rather, feeling proud becomes a source of self-Love.

Allow yourself to be proud of your gifts and abilities, and by doing so, Love Yourself more:  As you love yourself more deeply and honestly, others will feel and notice this about you and in return feel love from you—being near you may cause them to discover a deeper love for themselves.

I felt moved to write this post because for me, one of my greatest challenges is feeling like “I’m good-enough.”  The deep truths of who we truly are, are so often revealed in our days as babies and children…somehow we just forget about it when we ‘grow-up.‘
Today, my little boy had a deep sense of pride in his eyes because he kept himself dry (potty-training). And as I looked at him and saw this sense of pride and accomplishment, I was filled with a sense of joy–I knew,without me saying any words other than, “Good-Job!” that he deepened his love and understanding of himself as a person at that moment.

And thanks to my two-and-a-half year old son, I was reminded that I too deserve to be proud of myself and thus, love myself more deeply.

WE ALL DESERVE TO BE PROUD OF OURSELVES, AND THUS, LOVE OURSELVES MORE DEEPLY.

A lesson you will have to  learn again and again: to see yourself with your own eyes, to love yourself from your own heart.–Oprah, from Oprah’s Letter to Her Younger Self

  • You have gifts & abilities. We all have gifts and abilities
  • You deserve to feel proud about who you are and what you offer.  We all deserve to feel proud about who we are and what we offer
  • When you feel proud of yourself—pride that is derived from a positive sense of self–not pride that is done to be boastful—you channel love for yourself throughout your mind, body and soul.

Congratulations to each of you for all you do and, all you share with the world! You are wonderful & amazing!

Blessings, Erin, Bella Bleue
©Bella Bleue Healing, Health & Inspiration for Your Life™ All rights reserved.

(Take a look at a post by my friend an fellow blogger Lisa,  How about a Little Tenderness?)

(See the Free Dictionary for a more detailed definition of Proud).