Your Body Journal 1: Life's Most Empowering Self-Care Tool

Writing in journals has helped me to grow dynamically during several different times in my life. They haven't always been pretty. To be honest, several of them have been pretty craggily and difficult to reflect on. Every so often there are other journal entries, where I find myself  feeling like I read something insightful written by a stranger.


  No matter what the state of journal--they all hold a fairly similar purpose: a place to process, record, question, listen, and heal. I have seen similar changes in others who journal year after year and honestly, I think it is one of the most valuable tools we can use to heal ourselves. You will learn something new every time. All it takes is patience and a promise to honor what your mind, body and spirit speak.


In part one of this series, I touch on one of my personal experiences with a  food based journal in order to witness how what I ate made me feel. I touch on this in particular because I think that foods have so many more side effects than most of us could try to imagine. The same food that is a fuel for your friend, may be a foe to your body. Some negative symptoms that foods can conjure are: moodiness, poor digestion, depression, ruddy looking skin, dark circles under the eyes, body odor, anger, irritability, muscle tension, stress, lack of coordination, fogginess of mind, chronic feelings of lethargy, insomnia, skin disorders, shortness of breath; the list goes on and on!

I hope to help introduce--or re-introduce-- you to the use of a journal as way to better cultivate body-awareness for sure situations as these. Hopefully, some of these stories and experiences may help those of you who could benefit from removing certain foods from your daily consumption.


It's great way to connect to the elements around you and your internal wisdom.  If you would like more detailed guidance on recording a food journal, stay posted; I plan to type up more on how to start a food journal (the compassionate way) in the future.


This is part 1 of a 3 part series on how to use a journal as a tool to listen to your body. Part 2  shares an exercise to create a "Journal to Cultivate Awareness" and ideas on how to find the perfect journal format for you.

Part 1. Listening to The Voice of Your Own Body and Food Journaling
Part 2. Choosing Your Medium...Cultivating A Journal As Unique As You Are
Part 3. Deepening Body Awareness: "Sensing the Seasons" Journal Exercise

Listening To The Voice Of Your Own Body...

...Through Journaling

The most important thing we can do to truly heal our body, mind and spirit, is take the time to listen. Our bodies are incredibly intelligent; they talk to us all the time and have a lot of wisdom. They offer us a plethora of signals that, if we listen, share many of the secrets we may ever need to know about health. 

"Healthy" isn't about the latest health fad, not about what works for your friends, and most definitely not about ignoring what your body tells you when someone else feels differently. The saying "You know your body better than anyone else"  is not a farce.  It is a great truth. It requires time, patience, self reflection, and reflection of your many different environments. 

Honoring Your Diversity and Knowing It is Beautiful.

Honoring your diversity is the root of living holistically. There are so many different kinds of people and body types out there, how could there possibly be one right way?! 

Best Tip Ever: 
If you want to be a healthy human being, take the time to observe the many facets of your true self and how you react or respond to the different environments as a whole. 

Living With The Fall Season: Cultivate Body Awareness, Balance from the Outside In. (part 1)

AUTUMN

{Living with the Fall Season Part 1}

From The Outside In: Cultivate Body Awareness, Shift With Seasonal Changes.

This is part 1 of a 4 part series on how to better live in harmony with the seasons.  

Does one season resonate with you more than others? Ever feel out of balance as the seasons change? Do you think I am crazy for even asking these questions? If you answer "yes" to any of the above, this blog post is for you ;)

This 'Living with Nature Autumn' series is made up of 4 Parts:

Part 1. From The Outside In: Cultivating Body Awareness, Shift With The Seasonal Changes.

Part 2.  Stay grounded and balanced: postural awareness, spiritual bathing, self care to avoid sinus infections and neck pain.

Part 3. Inspire your creative voice: honor your dreams, stay hydrated, and get crafty...

 Part 4. Harmony through proper food, meditation, and, movement therapies.

Photo by Nishaan Sandhu, Slade, Kentucky, 2009

AUTUMN

Living with the Seasons Part 1

When a sultry summer in Kentucky fades into Autumn, change, movement and an array of new sounds fill the air. It has always been my favorite change of season and one  of the things I most miss about living on the East coast. There, the fall always seems long, magical, crisp and colorful (well at least in my romanticized memories). Lucky for those of us in Kentucky who love fall, we have had an early one this year! Just in time to celebrate the Autumnal Equinox today.

On Fall

Autumn evokes a myriad of color and a downward swirling of energy that can rustle up a kaleidoscope of emotions. Some feel the wild stirrings of fall to be creative, inspiring, grounding, and free. While for others, the same autumnal changes feel heavy with fragile emotions, sensations of brittleness in the body and a mourning for the warmth that was summer. No matter what side of the season you fall on mentally, emotionally, or physically, there are ways to embrace the energy and inspire self-growth. While reading on, you may find some tools to help balance, inspire, harmonize and warm you up to the season. 

Questions to ask yourself: 

What side of the spectrum do you stand? How does your body and mind feel in the fall? Do you sense any drastic changes? Can you think of any "seasonal habits" that you tend towards subconsciously in order to support of your body and mind?

Feeling Our Way Through The Seasons

As a writer, Laraine Herring says, seasons are the "moods of mother earth". These moods of the earth shine onto us throughout the years; some light and some dark. Unless you choose to live somewhere that has an easy-breezy steady temperature year round, it is likely that you too may be affected by the earths moods. Some of us are more or less sensitive to the moodiness than others. We may have to work a little harder to maintain a sense of balance, but, it is possible and well worth the time. 

Just like all embodied emotions, we have a choice to work with these shifts in nature as a tool to better understand the (sometimes icky, sometimes lovely) depth that is ourselves.  

On Learning and Teaching

C. Photo by Nishaan Sandhu, Lake Eerie, 2008

And today it came to me...

A good teacher helps to unveil what you 

already have in your spirit and in nature,

The possibilities and resources are unlimited

as long as your action is one out of love and 

respect. 

7 Ways to Surrender to a rainy day of nesting

Francis the cat in deep thought...she sits on our notebook.

My nest on this cool rainy morning features a pile of books and a myriad of linens woven together...soft light fades in from the windows lighting up apricot walls and tones of warm wood that grace the room...a purple yoga blanket, magenta socks (that my boyfriend's mom so graciously knit for me last winter) and a cup of honeyed earl gray tea keep me warm. A pen, a laptop, a notebook and a black and white owl-cat named Francis keep me company.

I am not sure I could ask for anything more. 


I have always seen rain as the earth's way of cleansing, reviving, and filling up the energy of living things. It's falling water feeds earthen matter, cool the air, clear emotions, and calm our energies. When I was about 22 years old, I observed that prior to a big storm, I often experienced a jolt of anxiety about 30-60 minutes before rainfall. I had the fortunate opportunity to take note this when working in a colorful vegetarian restaurant in Louisville that had a gaping window front. I could watch the weather like a movie screen, sensing the plots before they happened. It made me wonder if our bodies somehow know it is okay to humbly let our emotions brim over. When rain comes, does our body innately well up with our not-so comfortable feelings as a way to allow the rain to help wash them away? 

There is also something about a rainy day that says "You know you aren't to get much done today....relax...Surrender to the warm ball of coziness you would like to curl into. Let the cold pitter-pattering of the rain inspire you to sit with your favorite cup of tea and newest read...". 

Sounds glorious, right? Well... It is. Sadly, It must be our reptilian brains speaking that has yet to catch up with the 21st century. It's not always so simple to make space for a rainy-day "time out" in everyday life  unless we are graced with a slippery Sunday to further fuel the "ultimate day of rest" (for many). 

This made me wonder about ways we can walk through a rainy-day in sync with nature, yet, still tend to our necessary tasks of our work day. 

Finding My Voice

As our hearts open up like a poppy flower in bloom....

So...I began this blog years ago in hopes to be able to finally speak out to the world...not really thinking anyone would read it...more so as an exercise to feel comfortable in my own skin. The only problem was...I couldn't find a way to lay it out there without worrying about my vulnerability.

I realized now that in a sense, I was afraid to be myself.

I recently met with a friend about blogging who I consider a pro.... she's just so good at it all around. My favorite part...she speaks from the heart! Her biggest tip of advice was to not write to your audience. Write as if you were speaking to a good friend. This opened my heart up to endless possibilities of blogging conversations and topics. The thought collages I create all day long may actually graduate past my random  jots on scrap paper...with an attempt to spill them over and onto this blog.

I think about this blog a lot...you wouldn't think so by the infrequency of posts, but, I do. I think about the many topics that I would love to cover, but, often times I find reasons not to write a damn thing. Mostly fairly self defeating reasons that I won't get into. The great news is, (though it's taken me years to finally fall into it), I finally realize that it's ridiculous to be to self-defeating in thinking that I have nothing good to say. Who's to say it's good or bad? Either way...it's me. So be it.

I can't guarantee a streamline focus of topic here. My work is in holistic health and I think that's for a reason. I think about a lot of things that I have seen work...color therapy, bodywork, botanical medicine, nutrition, philosophy, design, connection to the spirit world, meditation, yoga, the animals, insects, symbolism, the scientific aspects of life, astrology, photography, music, gardening.. divination.... the list goes on and on....

So, as I am stepping out of my proverbial writing closet (overly-protective armor of self-consciousness undone), I still feel a little nervous; In case you didn't notice, I like to talk in circles. I think it's a family trait. And...for those of you who know me well...sometimes I lack a filter. Or, maybe it's that I like to be straight forward and I am not Southernly sweet about it. I am a native New Yorker after all.

I realize that about ten years ago I began to stifle my loudness factor by like ten billion. I thought I should be a wall flower. I wore olive green I think subconsciously knowing it is like the worst possible color I could EVER wear...almost every day. Over the past few years, I rediscovered the concept of wearing color and I think it is one of the biggest positive changes I made in my life! It was like I had a life again.

I love to talk, I love to write, for those of you close to me...you know this. I have piles and boxes of journals that I have kept since I could even begin to write. I have found myself talking to other writers about writing over the year. It almost always goes like this...I follow any and all comments up with, "I mean, I am not a writer  or anything...". It gave me a dull little pang in my gut every time, yet, I continued to say it. My body was talking to me. It was saying, "I am a writer...maybe not a formally trained writer, and maybe not really even a good writer, but I am a writer."

So. Here it is. The rebirth of my blog...at a great time for me where I am experiencing a re-birth of my spirit.

The kind where my inner self is finally stepping out and not worrying about the criticism of others. Whoosh! That's big for me and feels great to type out loud. It looks like a bright red poppy flower that inspires an impressionistic painting of a flamenco dress that billows with the energy of the music in which it dances. 

So, it's time for me to get back to the office. I am really happy that I finally decided to make it to the coffee shop this afternoon with little expectations of my productivity. Especially thank you to the wild hearted young women who spoke so loudly next to me that they distracted me from being "productive". Who needs to do taxes anyway?  Writing this blog is so much more what I felt like doing.  Everyone deserves time to just be...

In celebration, this weekend, I am going to scatter those scarlet red poppy seeds that have been waiting to bloom all year.

Love to you and without armor,
Nishaan