Day: March 11, 2021

Tools for our Self-Care Toolbox

March 11, 2021 /

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Many people expressed appreciation for the deep breath exercise last week. Share another practice that you use to center yourself. Let’s help fill each other’s self-care toolkits!

  • Cat stretching before I get out of bed followed by a glass of water.
  • Essential oils and hot tea help me come into the present!
  • Go for a walk.
  • Gratitude exercise of listing 3 things you’re grateful for each day or looking at the world like you’re seeing it through the eyes of a child.
  • Guided Mindfulness Meditations: http://www.rockymountainmindfulness.org/audio.html
  • I have used the deep breathing in the past and find that it really is helpful, I will continue to do that.
  • I hyper focus using my senses. For example, if I’m taking a drink of water, I fully engage my mouth with the sip – noticing if it’s bubbly, uses different tastes, if it’s cold or warm, if some stays on my lips.
  • I try to meditate twice a day and have felt at times that it has been helpful. I am under a lot of stress and feelings quite isolated as I have very little in-person contact that is positive in nature.
  • I use a modality called EFT several times a day to help deal with stress and sleep.
  • I vacuum.
  • If I consciously begin to name all that I have to be grateful for, I become calmer.
  • Journaling, meditation
  • Lighting candles and appreciating the flame, the warm glow and flicker.
  • Look out my window and do 10 eye blinks a couple times a day
  • My sister introduced me to a relaxation product, “Calm”. It has gentle music with beautiful nature videos, waterfalls, rain, bubbling mountain streams, etc. She put a link on my laptop’s desktop. I find it helpful and immediately available. (It also has verbal meditations, but I haven’t used those.)
  • Prayer & meditation
  • Quiet mindfulness and an appreciation of the focusing nature of silence.
  • S.T.O.P.:
    • Stop
    • Take three deep breaths
    • Observe how you are feeling
    • Proceed with love into the world
  • Stand and walk as if a Zen master is pulling towards them from your center.
  • Stretching exercises
  • Try moving away from Self to Principle 7, etc.
  • Use breath work
  • Walking
  • When feeling anxious I review the 5 senses that I am experiencing in that moment. Really helps!
  • Yoga Centering prayer

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A Look Back at Rev. Gretchen’s Pandemic Letters to the Congregation

March 11, 2021 /

As you process the anniversary of the pandemic and all that came with it, it can be helpful to look back on the past year. We invite you to explore our “Looking Back at 2020” timeline and revisit some of Rev. Gretchen’s letters from the past year:

Vital Signs (March 27, 2020)
“Wherever you are, and however you’re doing, you are not alone. We are all in this together. After a couple of weeks of increasing intensity, things got even more real yesterday with Larimer County’s (and then soon after the Governor’s) instruction to shelter in place…We are in this together. We are all trying to figure out what life means now, how we can connect in meaningful ways – what courageous love looks like now.”

How Far Out Can You Go (April 3, 2020)
“It’s somewhat of a spiritual cliche to talk about “one day at a time,” but in these times, I’ve found it to be a life-saving mantra.  Some days, I’ve found it’s more like one hour at a time… So for this week, I’d invite you to think about how far out you can go in your thinking without compromising your connection to life in its fullest sense. How far out you can imagine before you lose sight of joy or gratitude.  And then just stay in that place.”

Four Ways to Respond Now (June 5, 2020)
“In this time of great uncertainty, the risk for all of us is that we become so overwhelmed we hunker down and just focus on our own survival. This is understandable, and even biological in some ways. And yet by our faith, we know that our survival must be forged in a path build on our collective survival, healing that comes not just for some, but for all.”

About the School News (August 5, 2020)
“I know, we’ve been pushed into our collective corners to struggle and grieve and deal and fail and try to make sense of what makes no sense – all by ourselves. But that’s not the real truth. The real truth is that you have community and companions and people who love you and who are rooting for you and your family. Some of them you’ve already met, and know well; a bunch of others you haven’t met yet.”

Whatever You’re Feeling, It’s Okay (November 25, 2020)
“It’s ok if it feels harder than you thought it would. It’s ok if you’re struggling. It’s ok if you’re scared. Just because it’s not new doesn’t make the trauma any less real. This IS a collective trauma we are experiencing. And what we know about trauma is you will feel it in your body. It’s normal to feel tired or wired, zoned out or super tuned in, nauseous or without an appetite. It’s normal to seek comfort in the most basic ways. Wherever you are, however you are responding, whatever is happening in your body, and in your heart, it’s ok, it’s right, and it’s enough.”

Acknowledging 2020 (January 20, 2021)
“Remember the full journey. The ignorance in which we lived for the first few months of the year. The shock and confusion as we moved into quarantine. The realization that this was not ending any time soon. The persistence of political polarization even amid a pandemic. The infuriating injustice of George Floyd’s death, then Breonna Taylor’s death. The systemic racism that remains at the root of our country. The ash falling from the sky as our beloved forests burned. The impossibility of online schooling while also full-time working from home. The long stretches of time without seeing those we love. The absence of hugs, and handshakes, and singing together. Acknowledge the whole journey.”

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