The answer is very simple! You create a time and space in your day, each day and you learn to sit with yourself. You learn to breathe with yourself. You learn to listen to yourself, encourage, motivate and empower yourself. You learn to nurture and care for yourself and most importantly, you learn to love yourself, from the inside out.

Learning to love yourself is without doubt a very challenging task. So many of us cannot bring ourselves to give a compliment to ourselves or others and are even worse at accepting a compliment from someone else. It is an instinct for our egos to take over and intercept before we graciously let ourselves blush in confidence and pride. How many times has someone said to you “wow, you look great, have you lost weight?” How many of us have answered “oh well I could do with losing a lot more!”. This is the ego sabotaging our good work and rail roading our progress. Wouldn’t it be a completely different scenario to reply to the same question by saying “thank you so much, I feel really great at the moment?” A completely different concept really.

My ethos is based around ‘healing ourselves from the inside out’. This is how I transformed my own life. There was a point in my life where I could not stand or sit in my own presence for even a few minutes. I continuously distracted myself with housework that ‘needed’ to be done or calls that ‘needed’ to be made. Anything was easier than having to be present with just myself. So how could I possibly heal or transform myself? I needed to get to know ‘the real me’. I needed to give my mind, body and emotions time to disconnect from each other, repair individually and then reconnect with one another. They needed to reconnect with me, as a communicative and functioning being.

I found the analogy of a butterfly’s life cycle so empowering and healing during this stage of my life. When you think about it, does the caterpillar ever think it will transform after complete metamorphosis into a beautiful free flying, free spirited butterfly? We will never know. But I do know that during this difficult stage of my life, I could never see myself as anything past that caterpillar stage. I felt so uncomfortable in my own skin, so full up of past trauma’s, worries, anxieties and fears that I was about to burst. Just like a caterpillar shedding its skin five times before entering its Pupa stage, letting go of the excess plants it had eaten so that it could become more comfortable and lighter in its own skin, I needed to shed layers of my own demons before I could start my transformation.

To do this, I meditated daily, enjoyed yoga, filled numerous notebooks by gratitude journaling, spent a lot of time walking outside with Mother Earth and started to speak kinder to myself. I accepted with compassion the difficult thoughts, the fears, the days which did not seem to go as I wished. I grew to accept and gained comfort from knowing that I was never going to be perfect, I am only human after all. As humans, we will never be perfect, what is perfect anyway? We and life are continually changing and evolving and so we are always on a continuous learning path. We may never be perfect, but we can learn to enjoy the journey.

Upon shedding and letting go of excess baggage, the butterfly then enters its Cocooning stage, it’s protective stage. This is a period of self-growth, of transformation. I used this period of my life as a protective time of self-recovery, of retreat, of reflection and of personal connection. Once I had shed my baggage, I used this time to restructure my mind, to reinvent my thoughts in a positive, kind and compassionate manner. This was a very intimate phase in my healing journey. It was a stage where I wanted to be cocooned with only me, with only my new positive and nurturing mindset and with my new understanding and compassionate way of living.

Slowly over time, my protective cocoon started to break open. I was becoming free. Free of my previous thoughts, memories, anxieties and I was now ready to launch myself and to fly high in life. This is the last stage in a butterfly’s life cycle. Now ready to propel itself into nature as a newly mature butterfly. It breaks free of its cocoon and takes a leap of faith as it waits for its wings to start flapping and flying. This beautiful butterfly completely unrecognisable from the bulging caterpillar a short while before, now a life completely transformed, completely renewed, oozing with an abundance of clarity, of hope, of dreams, of influence, of happiness and of health.

Another interesting concept to think about; ‘can a butterfly fly with only one wing?’ I wouldn’t fancy its chances. We can apply this theory to ourselves in creating and or enhancing our own healing journey or life transformation. Think of one of the butterfly’s wings as comprising of Kindness and Compassion for ourselves and others. Think of the second of the butterfly’s wings as comprising of Mindfulness. Just like the butterfly needing both of its wings to fly, we need Kindness, Compassion and Mindfulness to aid, enhance and facilitate our own personal transformation, healing and life journey.

We can envisage ourselves needing both these wings of Kindness, Compassion and Mindfulness to work together, in sync with one another, in an agreeable and equally effective rhythm in order for us to fly high in our own lives. We are all equally capable of entering a cycle of transformation in our own personal journeys. I guess some of us will decide to do it sooner than others and others will do it later in their lives but maybe at a different pace. There are no rules. Just like every butterfly, we can decide when we are ready to enter our protective cocooning stage and ultimately when we are ready to emerge as a newly transformed being.

We all have this innate ability to develop this deeply intimate relationship with ourselves, to deeply connect with ourselves and to learn to love who we are and to love who we can transform into. The question is, ‘are you ready to spread your wings of Kindness, Compassion and Mindfulness and soar high above your expectations? Are you ready to heal and transform yourself from the inside out?’

Leona McDonnell

(As published in the Westmeath Examiner Newspaper on 16-6-2020 and in
The Anglo Celt and The Meath Chronicle Newspaper on 17-6-2020)

When you think about it, we are all born with a heart which starts to beat very early on in our mother’s womb. From this second onwards, we have the ability to live, to love, to feel empathy and to give and receive kindness and compassion. Our beating hearts keep us alive every single second of every day of life that we are gifted with. They act like the engine room on a ship, a very large, complicated and intricate ship. Just like this engine room on the ship, our heart controls every element of our existence.

We are all gifted with lungs to breathe. Some of us are blessed with two lungs, some with one lung, some with perfectly healthy lungs, some with compromised lungs. Our lungs provide us with essential air and life force every second of every day. Without our lungs, we cannot breathe the oxygen that our body needs to survive. How many of us actually stop and think about what our heart and lungs do for us minute by minute? Some of us do, some of us don’t. We don’t need to as they beat and breathe independently every day. Thankfully, this is the case! If we had to remember to breathe every second to stay alive, we would all be in trouble! Our minds continuously wander and get distracted by life in general, so it would be a difficult task to remember to breathe in order to stay alive. Another question; how many of us express gratitude for these special gifts of life? How many of us view ourselves as being blessed with life every day that we experience our hearts beating and lungs breathing independently?

So essentially, with just these two functioning elements, we already have everything we need within us to stay alive. We can apply the same concept to our thoughts, emotions and feelings. With the fast paced era we are used to living in, so many of us have forgotten, or maybe never realised in the first place, that we can pause, we can connect with ourselves and that we all have control and choices over how we want to live our lives.

This is the fundamental aspect that I lost control over when I was in the depth of my own anxiety and at the mercy of my increasingly destructive thoughts and mind. I felt like I was being continually chased by a dark shadow whom I feared desperately. I didn’t quite know why this shadow was chasing me, but I never wanted to hang around to find out. I was
continually searching and seeking for that ‘professional person’ or ‘practice’ that would ‘fix me’ and help me to feel less invaded by my own thoughts and mind. I never thought for one second that I could in fact be that ‘professional person’ and that I could go on to carve, shape and implement my journey of healing and recovery.

It wasn’t until I started to practice Mindfulness, Meditation and Yoga that I learnt to rest in the uncomfortable space my mind and body was in. I learnt how to be patient with every feeling of panic, with every debilitating fearful thought, with the numerous tears of anxiety, depression and sadness that I shed. I learnt how to treat my mind, my emotions and my physical body like I would treat my very best friend. I also learnt how to soothe and comfort myself instead of ripping myself apart.

The more I developed my own Mindfulness and Meditation practice, the more freedom and space came into my mind and body. I felt calmer, more able to cope with life’s daily demands, less panicky about the normal ups and downs of health, family, work and life in general. I felt I developed more control over my reactions to life’s stimuli. This just happened the more I adopted a mindful approach to living.

As time went on, I realised that I had so many of the resources I needed for my own recovery and daily life inside of my body. I developed a strength in knowing and in using my breath as my anchor to relieve stress, anxiety, fear and panic. I used simple breathing techniques to slow down my heart rate and to slow down and relax my breathing rhythm. Daily Meditation, even for just 10 minutes, helped to create a calm space in my mind and body. Mostly, I would just sit in a quiet room, in my own presence, listening to and connecting with my own breath.

I found that using these internal resources helped me to increase the volume of tools in my mindful toolbox. I discovered that engaging my breathing effectively during each day, particularly at times of heightened stress and anxiety, created a feeling as if someone had opened the valve of a balloon and let some much-needed air release outwards. It took so much pressure out of that balloon. Using daily Meditation became my new ‘rest and restore’. Before this, at some of my lowest points, I found it hard to get through the day without having to sleep for at least an hour. I was exhausted and felt I needed this rest time for recovery. But the more I meditated in the quietness and stillness of my own breath and heartbeat, the more rested I felt and as if I had slept for hours. It gave me a new sense and feeling of empowered energy and zest for life.

The most powerful point in my life was the realisation that ‘EVERYTHING I need is already WITHIN me’. This realisation came only when I stripped back my whole life, when I assessed every element and part of my life. This included determining which parts of my life were working for me and which parts were slowly destroying me. I became personally empowered with the ability to have so much control and choice over my health and well-being and of how I wanted to pursue forward in my life.

I soon realised that all I need in my life is for my heart to beat and my lungs to breathe. Every day that this happens independently is a joyous day and a reason to celebrate and express immense gratitude. Anything else in my life after these gifts are a bonus to be blessed with. I
became confident in the practice of using my breath as the gateway to the life of calm, peace, serenity, fun and laughter that I was continuously chasing for the previous 10-15 years.

Once we have the foundations and core of our existence functioning, these being our beating heart and our breathing lungs, which in turn operate the other systems in our bodies, everything else can be determined by our own choices, by our own power, by our own internal strength and abilities. This realisation is truly life transforming. Having a set of coping techniques in our mindful toolbox is incredible. You can constantly add to your existing internal resources by building up your mindful tools, which you always have access to . You don’t even have to remember to bring them with you! You have your coping techniques internally to use at any given moment and particularly during stressful and anxious times.

The feeling of no longer needing to find somebody else to ‘fix you’ is incredible. The safety in the knowledge that you don’t need to ‘fix yourself’ is truly empowering. You can adopt a mindful approach to living that will help you to live alongside whatever shadows are chasing you. The shadows will become less frightening and more manageable. Developing and nurturing a deep sense of internal resilience and stable strength will empower and encourage you beyond your expectations.

Once you start to believe, practice and instil the belief that ‘EVERYTHING you need is already WITHIN you’, you will experience immense internal and external courage, strength and gratitude that can help you to become the very best version of yourself!

Leona McDonnell

(Published in the Westmeath Examiner on 12/5/2020 and The Meath Chronicle and The Anglo Celt on 13/5/2020)