Hello, hello my loves!
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about self-kindness during Women’s History Month. Women are constantly conditioned to show up for EVERYONE: the friend in crisis at 2am, the coworker who needed covering, the family member who tries your dang patience. You have been strong, capable, gracious, and endlessly giving.
Who shows up for you when no one else does?
In the Paganism we honor the cycles of nature: the waxing and waning, the seasons of growth and rest, the understanding that nothing in this world gives endlessly without also being replenished. You are no different. You are nature.
Here are five practices that have helped me (and the women in my community) begin to turn that fierce, devoted energy back toward themselves.
1. Speak to Yourself Like You Would Speak to Her
You know that friend: the one you love unconditionally, whose flaws you barely even register because you just see her? The one you would never dream of calling lazy, not enough, or a failure? That is how you deserve to be spoken to. Try to notice that inner voice that bitches and nags at you and when it does, pause and ask: Would I say this to someone I love? If the answer is no, it doesn’t get to live in your head rent-free either.
2. Ritualize Your Rest
Rest is not the reward at the end of productivity. Rest is necessary, especially women who were raised to equate busyness with worth…. Yup, rest is something we have to actively reclaim. Choose one small act of intentional rest and make it yours. Light a candle before you sit with your tea in the morning. Draw a bath with salts and oils and let it be an offering to yourself. Lay on the earth, close your eyes, and let the ground hold you. These don’t have to be elaborate moments they just have to be intentional moments where you consciously choose yourself.
3. Stop Apologizing for the Space You Take Up
So many of us have been conditioned by family, by society, by years of being made to feel like too much and to shrink to keep others comfortable. Fuck that.
Your presence is not an inconvenience. Your needs are not a burden. You are allowed to take up space.
Start with one moment a day where you resist the urge to apologize for simply being. Notice how it feels. Let it feel uncomfortable at first to allow the old programming to begin to shift.
4. Tend to Your Body as if It Were Holy Ground
(This is my current struggle…)
Your body has carried you through every hard thing you have ever survived. Every heartbreak, every sleepless night, every moment you weren’t sure you’d make it through your body kept going. It’s a beautiful, chaotic, imperfect fucking miracle and I want you to remember that.
Start small, where you can; try drinking water before your coffee. Try other little things that you might not otherwise do during the busyness of the day like stepping outside and feeling the sun on your skin. Moving in a way that feels good rather than punishing. Putting lotion on your hands slowly, mindfully, like an act of devotion.
In many Pagan traditions, the body is seen as a vessel for the divine and is a sacred container for spirit. When you tend to your body gently, you are honoring the goddess within you. Remind yourself that you ARE a damned Goddess and deserve to be treated as such.
5. Let Yourself Be Witnessed
One of the loneliest experiences a woman can have is to be surrounded by people and still feel completely unseen. Part of self-kindness is allowing yourself to be known and to stop performing okayness when you are not okay, to let someone sit with you in the hard parts, to say “I’m struggling” out loud to someone safe.
This might be a therapist, a priestess, a sister-friend, or a community of women who understand the path you’re walking. Whatever it looks like for you, seek out spaces where you don’t have to hold it all together. Where you can arrive exactly as you are, as messy and broken down as that is, and to be held and not judged.
A Final Word
These five practices will not fix everything overnight. Shadow work, healing, self-love are the directions you keep choosing, again and again, even when it’s hard.
And every time you choose kindness toward yourself, every gentle word, every intentional rest, every moment of refusing to shrink, you are casting a spell. You are rewriting the story of who you are and what you deserve. And you, my love, deserve everything.
Come find me in the community, in the workshops, in the classes: I would love to walk this path alongside you.
Love you, be well,
Autumn || The Untamed Priestess 🌙
