On being blind to ourselves

With Donna McArthur

Welcome to Resurface, with me, Tamzin Merivale.

I’m an intuitive artist, writer and mentor, and this space is for creating deeper connections not only to others, but to parts of ourselves that have been forgotten, neglected, or are waiting to be discovered. My mission is to show you just how much you light up the world a round you, simply by existing.

My mission is to see the unseen, to hear the unheard, to bear witness.

You can learn more about how I do this here.

Hello lovely people,

I’ve been absent, offline, unwell, checked-out. I still feel a sense guilt when I turn away from my work, neglect consistency or “fail” to show up as usual. I know better — right before my break, I wrote a whole post about throwing out the rulebook and how important that is for creative people. I repeat it to my clients all the time — rest, take breaks, ignore anything that starts with “I should…”.

However, sometimes I struggle to follow my own advice, so my body clicks into gear and forces me to instead.

Slow down, it says. Stop altogether, just for a little while.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, tired, sad, or *insert weary emotion, then please take a break. An actual break. Not a break where you say you’re not working but your mind is constantly on, trying to solve a problem in the background, or where you keep doom-scrolling, or comparing yourself negatively to others. Instead, find something entirely different to focus on, something nourishing.

We need true mental and emotional breaks, if we want to show up in any real way in the world — especially if we want to be creative or to make a positive difference in the world.

Rest, please.

Today,

Donna McArthur

has written a really lovely guest essay about some of the ways she has learnt to access deeper, hidden parts of herself.

Donna has been a healthcare provider in a beautiful mountain town in British Columbia for nearly 30 years. She explores well-being from an evidence-based and heart-centred perspective, both one-on-one and in group settings. In her newsletter, The Bright Life, Donna writes about the tools we can implement to create changes in our daily lives that move us closer to wholeness, there are gems here for everyone!

Tools for accessing deeper parts of ourselves

by Donna McArthur

As I have grown on the inside, a process that has spanned about 35 years, I’ve been called to peel away the exterior layers that have kept me from seeing who I truly am. The wish to show up fully as my best self (corny, but true) has led me to try so many things, and some have become lifelong habits…

As a youngster, growing up in northern Alberta, my need to ‘find myself and be free’ fit right in with the drinking culture I found myself in. I fully embraced alcohol which helped me both to feel and not feel, but it did not help me to see. I was blind to myself, living as I was expected to, rather than honing my inner truth, for decades. I eventually chose to stop drinking because, as each year passed, I felt myself transported further from myself. There is that saying, “do the thing you cannot do” — that was me and wine. I never would have predicted a sober life for myself, but it has given me access to the deepest and best parts of me in ways I never imagined.

Writing has always been how I make sense of the world and my role within it. Through reading and writing, I’m able to build cohesion in my thoughts, create traction for my life, and contemplate my big dreams and desires. I have depended on it the way one leans on an old friend with whom no small talk is needed – it’s solid, so I can be fully myself.

Another useful ritual to access my deeper self has been stepping into cold water, which increases my energy levels when I’m feeling low. I have an aversion to cold so this was another thing I never thought I could do — perhaps why it’s so empowering. Adopting this habit showed me that I can do hard things; I find it releases endorphins every time, and it trained me to stay calm in moments of hardship — a very handy life skill!

One powerful meditation technique I’ve found helpful is to sit quietly and visualize the space between my eyes. I take my view more and more microscopically until I’m at the cellular and then the atomic level. I am IN the space between the atoms. I can see the electrons and protons circling the nucleus and I see almost all of it is space rather than matter. It is silent, peaceful, constant, and everywhere. I’ve found this exercise helps me feel more expansive, more calm, and I can carry it into my day more than other methods I’ve tried.

Deepening my relationship with myself is very important to me. It’s what I encourage my readers to do in my newsletter — let us listen to our inner whisper and have the courage to follow it. It’s a skill we can all learn. When I have clarity and communion it allows me to go out into the world to interact as fully as I can, this is important work — it is how we can change the world. When each of us shows up as our best self it has a profound ripple effect on those in our circle and, from there, our community.

What tools do you use to access deeper parts of yourself? What have they taught you?

Thanks so much Donna for the reminder that it can be the simple things that offer the most profound results, and how important it is to listen deeply to ourselves.

Until next week,

Tamzin xx