The Spiritualist Church of the Light

Being a spiritualist is difficult. 

Simply put, the seven principles state what we give we get, whether it is through thought, word, or deed. We and only we are responsible for our life. We are able to learn and change because we have free will. But, free will can be a double edged sword. We can also choose not to change. Our choice. Change can be very difficult and scary. We need to look after ourselves to be our best so we can make positive changes. In order to make these changes we need to take care of ourselves and be in the best form we can be in spiritually, mentally and physically. So we need to look at the term self-care and what exactly does self-care mean? According to Brianna Weist:

“Self care is often a very UN-beautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing you have to do. 

Like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore.

Or get a second job so you can have a savings account. 

Or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you are not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read ‘The Secret’ and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and restrategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t. So maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualising your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even new what was happening. 

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self care, it is because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot to do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self sabotage in the form of retail therapy, food, liquor and procrastination. 

It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself….and maybe finding that taking care of yourself lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. 

It means rewiring and reworking what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. 

It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. 

It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others.

It is being honest even if that means you are universally unliked. 

It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want to be and are meant to be. Someone who knows that bath salts and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life—not escape from it.”

So REMEMBER: WHATEVER YOU ARE NOT CHANGING YOU ARE CHOOSING.

I will repeat that: WHATEVER YOU ARE NOT CHANGING YOU ARE CHOOSING.

So choose wisely!!!