I hope these 3 articles on self care are inspiring and guiding you about the ways to actively maintain clarity and freshness. Reflecting on and writing these articles has helped me maintain my self care around the activity of my day to day.

Here’s Part 3 of My Self Care: nature / purpose / spiritual / trust / celebration.

1) Nature ~ it’s all around us. But it doesn’t always seem that way. I grew up in New Jersey, 10 miles from Manhattan. The Goffle Brook Farm was 2 blocks from our house where we would play endlessly. Then around my 9th birthday the farm disappeared. Shopping malls along with high rise buildings took its place. The roads got paved. There were more cars. The local lots with streams and trees disappeared. The lawns around the houses were manicured. BTW, the name of my town was Fair Lawn. Smiles.

The aliveness of nature was sorely missing. My interest in school and hobbies dropped. It was a tough time for me.

Since college, I have lived near or in nature. I sensed the aliveness. There’s an underlying stillness. I hear and see the animals, along with the wind blowing through the trees.

For decades I’ve enjoyed daily walks in nature. This enlivens the early hours of my day, while relaxing me as my hour(s) glass is winding down.

On the days I write, I schedule ample time in nature to slow down, walk, and sit. It’s like easing into a subtle yet distinct stillness. In response, my thinking slows and clears. My breathing deepens and is refreshed.

Over the years I’ve benefited from extended periods of wilderness training. I’ve learned to be more aware of the aliveness in nature and ways to interact with it.

I’ve also lived deep in nature with indigenous tribes. Their ever-present awareness and relationship with their environment was simple yet profound. It seemed to nourish their clarity and calm, as well as an ongoing enjoyment with whatever they were doing.

I continue to live and work from my home in nature. It creates an environment of nourishment that enables the vitality needed for my work, as well as my personal life.

2) My Purpose is to more fully wake up and show up for living my highest vision. Progressing through many phases, this has been the theme of my life. I’ve discovered the clarity of and alignment with my purpose enables my willingness to do what was useful and necessary to live it.

Upon college graduation, I had no idea about my purpose. So I felt betrayed by my education and culture. Yet it was time to meet and work in the world.

I was a deer in the headlights during my first few jobs. I feared becoming trapped in work that made no sense to me.

So I looked for guidance and found one of my earliest mentors, the mythologist, author and professor, Joseph Campbell. I was profoundly inspired by one of his famous quotes: “Follow your heart and you will put yourself on a track that has been there all the while waiting for you. The life you ought to be living is the one you will be living”.

This simple insight inspired and guided me. I realized I love working with people but selling stuff like encyclopedias was not my calling.

So I considered what I honestly wanted to do. This led to my community counselor work where I realized I wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. But then I needed more training to be effective.

This led to the graduate and post-graduate studies leading to becoming a licensed psychotherapist. Along the way I worked on a clinical team with the awareness pioneer, David R. Hawkins, MD, prodigious author of Power vs Force. BTW, our residential program was deep in the northern mountains of Arizona.

While loving the clinical work, I eventually realized the medical and transpersonal models of psychotherapy were restricting the ways I could help people. So I transitioned through further training into executive and life coaching. This enabled me to align my experience with an expanded tool kit for helping clients transform their current day to day into living their highest vision.

Quarterly and annually, I continue to review, refresh and maintain the alignment of my purpose with my personal ~ work life.

3) My Spiritual life enables the heartbeat of my personal ~ work life.

Each and all of my spiritual practices contribute to the clarity and vitalization of my intelligences: spiritual, mental, emotional and relational.

There are scheduled daily times when I do a spiritual practice. I do my best to create the space to step out of any activity while easing into inner quiet and breathing more fully.

The first thing every morning I'll enter a practice of heart consciousness, followed by mindful prayer. This sets the tone for my day. This practice is simply illustrated in my second book, Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Living Your Destiny.

Throughout the day I will revisit being mindfully quiet while breathing deeply for 30 seconds. I do this before every meal and before/after every appointment. Doing this fortifies my clarity and vitality during the activity of my day. It has become routine through ongoing discipline.

Several times weekly, I enjoy a process called MAP, Mutual Awareness Practice. This involves a structured, shared awareness process with another person. It develops my overall awareness with myself, others and the current situation.

Before bed, I do my best to slow down. I will go for a slow walk in nature followed by reading something spiritual.

I ease into sleep every night by doing a mindful practice with prayer. I find this releases lingering tension and refreshes which prepares for a more restful sleep.

4) Trust is essential. Yet through the uncertainty of life, what and who can I trust, and how?

In brief, I’ve discovered 3 levels of trust that are fundamental for me. Through the challenges of my day to day, I do my best to incorporate them into my life.

Basic Trust fortifies my foundation and in principle is unconditional. It’s about my actually experiencing being alive and the ways life has always been there to guide and support me. I am often reminded about the ways support has emerged though others. So through the challenges, this is something I do my best to keep alive inside me.

Relative Trust flows though my every day and is conditional. It is trust between myself and others. I’ve learned it relies on integrity (myself and other’s), intentions, behaviors, capabilities and is enabled through my level of awareness. Realizing these factors enables me to use them to influence myself and others for operating at our brightest and Best.

Shared Trust I experience as a deepening of relative trust and is conditional. It is more based on shared commitment which enables restoring as well as generating greater trust in ourselves and what we are doing. It relies on developing the capacity to relax into basic trust, personally and together. This encourages new potentials to emerge which can make all the difference in something.

5) Celebration has become a cornerstone and springboard in my life. It’s not moment to moment but I often experience it during my walks or moments of quiet.

After all, what’s it all for? Through the pace and demands of our “modern times”, I want to appreciate the day to day stuff that touches my heart, along with the life changing stuff both big and small.

I have been looking to buy a car. Yesterday I met a friend at a local cafe. She spontaneously informed me about someone she knows who may be able to help me. I was also treated to my favorite sorvete de chocolate (chocolate gelato).

I have been reaching out to community leaders about participating in mastermind groups I am forming with a colleague. Earlier in the week, another colleague offered to introduce me to 3 community leaders whom I am now looking forward to meet.

My life has simplified over the last several years. Relocating to Brazil has required that I let go most of my art work. Yet I cherish the art I still have and keep it close to me. To boot, I am living in in unspoiled nature while still providing the service I love with clients world-wide.

Reflections for optimizing your self care foundation.

1) During the intensity and pace of your day-week-year, which of these 5 fundamentals have touched you?

2) Be encouraged to muse over them for the next few days.

3) Choose 1 or 2 that, when improved, can generate a difference in your personal and work life.

4) What is your action plan and supports for taking the first, and next steps?

If these fundamentals of self care speak with you, then be encouraged to reach out for an innovative and complimentary Talk Time with Otan.

otan@otanpatrickford.com 1.973.229.7174 https://www.otanpatrickford.com

SUBSCRIBE to my new series of weekly articles on Substack. otanpatrickford.substack.com.

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Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Living with Fierce Authenticity

Unwavering Heart: 5 Keys to Becoming your Destiny