Friday Lesson: Self-Preservation is Political Warfare

 

Quote of the Day: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” –Audre Lorde

Weekly Show Reflection:

You can tell by the length of this week’s episodes that our guests had some important ideas to share. And these three guests, over these four episodes spoke with such heart about self-care.

I could not do justice trying to summarize all of the powerful points made by Kirstin, Steven, and Cait, but I will tell you that if you need to make self-care more of a priority, you should listen to some or all of these episodes.

Kirstin Nussgruber is a two-time cancer survivor and a health and wellness coach who works with people on balancing their body, mind, and spirit. Kirstin brought some very interesting ideas to the table. One being that her illnesses were meant to teach her lessons. She shared with us details about the complicated relationship she had with her mother, and her decision to try to heal herself from the emotional pain of it while both she and her mother were battling cancer diagnoses. Uniquely, Kirstin’s way of caring for herself was through past life regression. If you find past life regression as fascinating of a topic as I do, then you will enjoy this episode and you will understand why I encouraged Kirstin to elaborate, and made the decision to extend her interview to two episodes.

I found Kirstin’s advice at the end of Part II powerful, and I would like to share that with you here: “The challenges in our lives, the crises in our lives…the difficult times in our lives, are there to actually push us forward, to catapult us forward, and they’re sent to us because the universe knows we can do it. So, if the universe knows we can do it, then, you know, who the hell are we to not believe in ourselves that we can actually do it, too? So turn it around. Of course, when you initially have that challenge, you need to, kind of, digest that first. And we do that… with the typical emotional reactions and that is absolutely needed and fine. But then we kind of come out of that, like a phoenix rising out of the ashes…” Make the intention to the universe: “I am open and I am ready to learn and receive.”

The second guest of the week, Steven Perlman, really surprised me. Steven is a keynote speaker, as well as a seasoned salesman, specializing in insurance and investments. He has been in his own business for much of his career, and he talks to a lot of people. You could say that networking is his life, however, he was genuinely happy that for once he could talk about his passion instead of his business. Since he was a teenager, Steven has been in love with sailing. He uses such beautiful imagery to describe what he loves about sailing, and why he needs this in his life. That sailing adds balance to his high pressure, high-paced work life by slowing it down and connecting him to nature. If you, or anyone you know, needs a reminder that there is more to life than work, than corporate life, than parenthood, entrepreneurship, caregiving or anything else that drains you – this is an episode for you. I ended this interview genuinely happy that Steven found this outlet in his life, and that he found it so early in life. It was a great reminder of the power of passion, and that we all deserve to have that space in our lives.

Cait Byrnes was the third guest of the week. Similar to Kirstin, Cait is also a health and wellness coach, but Cait’s focus is women who are suffering from fatigue and burn-out, and she does this through nutritional education, emotional support, and the promotion of radical self-care.  Gentlemen, though, do not feel left out. You can a) apply all of what Cait talks about to yourself, and b) gain some serious insight into the minds of women through this episode. So my advice is: Enter, but do so at your own risk. Cait and I talk about many key concepts that surround stress ...