Happy Mothers Day!
Wow, a day that encourages others to give us gifts, to let us sleep late and then give us breakfast in bed. Like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day can be a bit tricky if the expectations/hopes and the reality don’t match. I don’t know if I’m going to get much pampering, but I sure wish it for you in spades.

Either way, I have a little something for you too: a tool you could use to create a pocket of comfort for yourself. It comes with permission and encouragement to take a moment just for you.

I’m going to start with a question, and answer it with an invocation:

Self-care is hard. And it’s easy to feel guilty about not doing it, just as it is easy to feel guilty about taking the time to do it.

How about a few minutes of Self-Kindness? Can we start there?

What if we give ourselves permission to sit down for a few minutes to give our back a rest? What if you took a break from the to-do list for something as simple as consciously rubbing a lotion that smells delicious on your dry hands, while really taking the time to enjoy the act? Adding kind self-talk to match helps nourish our overextended minds and hearts.

Invoking Self Kindness for moms:

An invocation is a declaration of healing intention. You might call it a meditation, a prayer, or a blessing. The name doesn’t matter, it’s the intention that counts. This invocation includes ideas that helped change my self-talk from the self-judgment that leads to self-loathing, to gently meeting myself exactly where I am, on a path that helped me find healing and comfort.

I love to read this in community: we read this text at the beginning of every mother’s support meeting I lead once a month here in Ithaca, NY (we are meeting this Thursday May 16th). The mothers in my groups tell me that they return to this text often, because they find it both comforting and empowering. I’m sharing this invocation here with you with the hope that it will help you create pockets of comfort for yourself whenever you need them.

So, here the invocation 3 ways: listen, read, or print, you decide.

Listen:
Click the red triangle to play to the recording (just under 3 minutes long). Download using the button on the top right.
The recording includes a little introduction that invites you to add soothing touch. (The invocation itself starts at 1 minute and 26 seconds, next time you listen, you could  skip the intro by shifting the time slider to 1:26.)

If you like this, please also click the “Like” and “Share” buttons, to help more mamas find this.
This is a SoundCloud recording. If the tech gods are acting up and the widget isn’t showing up for you, you can find this recording at  https://soundcloud.com/yael-daphna-saar/invocation-of-self-kindness

Read and print:
Right click on the image to download this poster to your computer, or just click on it to open a new page with the invocation poster set up as a printable high-rez PDF document:

 

 

And just in case the image isn’t showing on your device, here is the text straight up: 

The Invocation of Self-Kindness

I am a woman and a mother.
I nurture. I give to others with love.
I am learning how to nourish myself with love.

I give myself permission to feel all my emotions.
All my feelings are valid,
but the scary stories they tell are not necessarily true.
I am learning how to tell the difference.

I am learning how to outsmart perfectionism, 
how to disarm anxiety and depression, 
how to release shame and harvest guilt.

I have an internal source of light: 
I turn it on with awareness, intention, and loving attention. 
I am learning how to shine the light of my attention 
to illuminate the scary and the painful, 
I seek the treasures hiding in the dark.

When my inner critic shows up in my head, 
I invite the wise woman who lives in my body to come out and play. 
I teach the body and the mind how to dance together.

I invoke the essence of trust, playfulness, sisterhood and Self-Kindness.      
I invite these qualities to show up in my heart and in my life.

I am new at this. 
I’m taking baby steps and leaps of faith:                  
faith in myself and in the power of love.

 

Thank you for reading/listening/printing.
Would you mind sharing? Please help me share these tools with other mamas.
If you share your feelings in a comment here and then share a link to this page on facebook or twitter, you’ll be entered into a drawing for a free Self-Kindness coaching session with me (think of it as an UnGuilt trip we’ll take together over the phone. Drawing will happen on the last day of the month).

If you are new to the Mama’s Comfort Camp, hello sweetie. I hope you will join us at our Facebook Refueling Station, where over 800 mamas from around the world  (more than 300 from the Ithaca area) help each other out.
This is the link to our facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/mamas.comfort.camp
If you are in the Ithaca area, why don’t you join our local group, which is where we make plans for local events and mutual assistance? Its right here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/312077432234576/

May there be lots of Self-Kindness in your life.
With all the love in the world,
Yael

 

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