HEALING MY SKIN
STEP 1: Taking accountability
My emotional relationship with sugar and everything sweet.
Writer: Saira Hussain
Sisters, the way I used to think about my SKIN was the adversity that I was trying to unfold.
Before I begin writing this chapter, I had to ask myself a few deeply embedded questions that seemed easy to avoid in my youth due to the energy I had and my metabolism. If you're someone who is struggling with your well-being internally, the exterior signs will catch up soon if you remain with your generational choices. It may be easy being fed; having someone cook for you so you can feel full or even sleep whenever you want to because you're young - but sister, it will catch up to you. I just never thought it would so quickly. These are the questions I ask myself routinely. Not weekly, but at least twice a month to check in with myself and acknowledge my sense of self. If it helps play the practitioner and the patient while asking yourself the following questions and journal your reflections:
What is your relationship with your body right now?
How do you talk about your skin, hair, nails?
Are you constantly over-giving?
Are you an over-achiever?
STOP RIGHT HERE
Let's begin by taking a time-out.
Yes, I said it. Let's close our eyes and find a place of peace...disengaging from our minds and falling into our bodies.
How do you feel when you are in your body?
BE HERE
(CLICK LINK BELOW)
Now that you've completed that you've surrounded your pain with pink and golden light, would you like to know more?
Read below.
I took an oath with myself earlier last year that I will move through the intricately woven layers of my pain; agony, lack of self-esteem and conditioning to find the source of who I truly am. With the aid of the pandemic and many months of therapy, mindfully guided meditation, love letter writing & exchanging my symptom queries for open-ended research and a new family doctor (thank goodness) I have made some remarkable and very simple discoveries about my body. I'm here today to share them with you. As a womxn's self-worth advocate I know how the volume of our Inner critic can build a void around our efforts and courage and influence our bodies for the worse. I ask you to acknowledge that you are here because you DESIRE TO CHOOSE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE for your WELL-BEING. THAT IS ENOUGH to get you started.
Firstly, I'd like to re-introduce myself. My name is Saira Hussain and I am a Holistic Health and Henna Practitioner, a womxn's self-worth and Parkinson's awareness advocate, an Intuitive healer and aspiring art-psychotherapist. My work involves working with our energetic systems and alternative medicine to help heal the body, mind with the power of the Heart. I'm am a love of the earth and all PLANTS are my family. Give me an HERB, a FLOWER and let's embrace their powers. We have so much to be grateful for including our indigenous sisters and their families. Let's take a moment to pay our respects to the medicine womxn, our spiritual guides and ancestors for helping us connect with our home; Gaia. I am a wild flower and a free spirit. A bipoc Muslim womxn on a path to break down the walls of segregation that have caused chaos to lead. I am here to tell you that I have had enough and the sisters of our universe are supporting me on this path. Are you in?
Let's begin by taking back our bodies and understanding our skin.
I have broken down this series of Healing my Skin into three layers of the most nutritious marination I have found (presently) with research, wellness guides and belief in self-healing. My skin healing journey includes the following:
Self-Awareness
Self-Compassion
Self-Worth
Yes, a 3 S-RECIPE !
It all begins by understanding the term 'balance'.
It's easier said than achieved. Firstly, the act of healing is a life long process. Many of us go on believing that we have healed ourselves - our bodies, our mental state or our families but healing is not a permanent solution. Where there is the process of healing, there is immense adversity and with a challenge comes a learned lesson or a few. GROWTH happens when pain begins to speak!
As we build self-awareness this first week, let's look at how we can achieve homeostasis and what this means for our SKIN:
Homeostasis refers to the state of internal balance by all living systems. We are complex creatures and our systems include involuntary and voluntary actions. We are also made of our seventy-trillion cells and as we age our bodies are transitioning in and out of physical, mental, emotional, and psycho-spiritual stages. This takes a lot of energy and fuel is needed to restore our systems so that we can operate at an optimal level.
Peeling back the layers:
When the pandemic hit our world, fear was magnified by the media and we fed off of this fear. It is not your fault. We have been programmed to live in a sympathetic state because we have been trying to over-achieve; perfect ourselves to the expectations of others and if we do not achieve what we are set out to do, we feel guilty. If it wasn't for the pandemic, I wouldn't have had the time to rest and reflect to view my life with a bird's eye view. When you are feeling stressed, you can extract yourself from the present situation by practicing the guided meditation I provided above or removing yourself from the toxic environment that you are in. It is not always a gentle process to do so and many times we find ourselves drifting away from those who we considered our family. The first element in raising self-awareness is to acknowledge that you are not responsible for healing the world; your family, your loved ones or your friends. We are all individuals set on our own journeys and the unfolding is done in becoming a self-compassionate witness during a period of deep isolation - darkness. In Jungian psychology, we call this our shadow self, which can also be identified as unconsciousness (avoidance or ignoring our truths). As the intrusive thoughts increased so did my weight, my self doubt and emotional eating habits.
It's easier said than achieved. Firstly, the act of healing is a life long process. Many of us go on believing that we have healed ourselves - our bodies, our mental state or our families but healing is not a permanent solution. Where there is the process of healing, there is immense adversity and with a challenge comes a learned lesson or a few. GROWTH happens when pain begins to speak!
As we build self-awareness this first week, let's look at how we can achieve homeostasis and what this means for our SKIN:
Homeostasis refers to the state of internal balance by all living systems. We are complex creatures and our systems include involuntary and voluntary actions. We are also made of our seventy-trillion cells and as we age our bodies are transitioning in and out of physical, mental, emotional, and psycho-spiritual stages. This takes a lot of energy and fuel is needed to restore our systems so that we can operate at an optimal level.
Peeling back the layers:
When the pandemic hit our world, fear was magnified by the media and we fed off of this fear. It is not your fault. We have been programmed to live in a sympathetic state because we have been trying to over-achieve; perfect ourselves to the expectations of others and if we do not achieve what we are set out to do, we feel guilty. If it wasn't for the pandemic, I wouldn't have had the time to rest and reflect to view my life with a bird's eye view. When you are feeling stressed, you can extract yourself from the present situation by practicing the guided meditation I provided above or removing yourself from the toxic environment that you are in. It is not always a gentle process to do so and many times we find ourselves drifting away from those who we considered our family. The first element in raising self-awareness is to acknowledge that you are not responsible for healing the world; your family, your loved ones or your friends. We are all individuals set on our own journeys and the unfolding is done in becoming a self-compassionate witness during a period of deep isolation - darkness. In Jungian psychology, we call this our shadow self, which can also be identified as unconsciousness (avoidance or ignoring our truths). As the intrusive thoughts increased so did my weight, my self doubt and emotional eating habits.
RSS Feed