What’s Sacred Just For You?
When we were little, we had forts, coloring books, and imaginative ideas that were sacred just for us. Not because we were trying to hide anything, we just didn’t live in a world yet where we openly shared our every move with others. We had sacred ideas, moments, and experiences, allowing us to be an entrusted friend to ourselves and our imaginative ideas.
As an adult, I kept part of that child-like sacredness with me. I would have a lot of experiences and rituals that would build my relationship and feelings of trust towards myself. The more comfortable I became with owning and sharing my truth, the more I realized that I no longer had as many moments that I kept just for me.
As we’ve been in isolation, I’ve begun integrating stronger, sacred space between my experiences and what I share with others. This has been the foundation for building a more nurturing, trusting, and celebratory relationship with myself.
The space between you, you, and others.
You’re having a moment where you make a warm cup of tea, sit and watch the trees outside your window, thinking of dreams and things you want to do. What if rather than taking a photo of it, or reaching for the phone to tell your friend about the epiphany you had, you kept that moment to yourself; a special experience between you and you. Savoring a moment and holding a sacred space allows you to take that experience deeper and discover more that your heart wants to tell you if you give it time to be.
A way to to do that is by feeling what it feels like to be present in that experience; to be with you. What it feels like to watch nature outside or connect with the ideas that are swirling in your head. Writing ideas down, or closing your eyes and connecting with them as if you’re already living them.
Making time to experience your life, ideas, and experiences just being with you will help you gain a stronger relationship with yourself.
When I travel, I journal a lot. Journaling while I’m traveling is different than when I’m at home surrounded by friends and family, on the same time zone, and just a quick phone call away. I turn to my journal as a confidant and space for my ideas, having a conversation just as I would with a friend.
I distinctly remember a time when I had about a week before my friends arrived in Greece, and I decided to go to an island by myself. I spent the days relaxing, visiting the town, and writing in my journal. These moments felt sacred. I felt like I was truly on an adventure and my relationship with myself was growing stronger every day. I was making memories with myself and felt free to express, do, or simply be.
Looking back, I cherish that time and often find that when I need to connect to myself deeper, I think back to that time in Greece. I only have a few photos from that adventure and never told a soul about the full experience. It’s something that I keep close to my heart as a fond memory with myself. I can sometimes hear my inner voice say, ‘Remember when you did that? When you were on the other side of the world walking through old streets and smelling the sweet fragrance of the blooming flowers?’ There’s a sense of peace that washes over me.
When you savor and keep a moment or experience with yourself, there’s a part in you that goes, ‘Thank you for not sharing our sacred time together, I’m glad that’s staying between us.’ The continued repetition of showing up for yourself in that way helps you to grow trust with yourself; that your dreams, ideas, and experiences are special and kept safe; sometimes our dreams are calling us back to our heart. They aren’t ready for the world to know them yet.
The space between you, your dreams, and the world.
I’ve learned over the years the importance of listening to whether our dreams and ideas are ready to be shared. There’s times when they want you to continue to grow and nurture it, perhaps grow into alignment with it, before sharing it with the world (or even with your closest friends and family). It isn’t about who you’re sharing it with at times, it’s that something sacred to the heart is now out in the world, rather than where it wants to be for the time being. Your dream wants to be seen, have room to grow, and be entrusted just with you.
You can distinguish if you aren’t ready to share your dream because you’re afraid, or if it isn’t ready to be shared yet. The main way to do this is by feeling into your body. One will feel like you are contracting, the other will feel like your dream or an energy separate to you is contracting when you think about sharing it. Our ideas and creations are separate entities to us that have an energy. The more you connect with it as a separate part of you, the more you’ll be able to listen to it.
A practice I use to have better discernment with sharing ideas, experiences, or sacred moments:
- The thought to share comes in. Whether it’s before you’re on the phone with a friend, on instagram, or while you’re already in conversation.
- Lean into your body and feel into your stomach or heart area. It could be any area on your body, often the part that feels connected to your intuition. Whatever it is for you is right.
- While you put your hand on your stomach or heart area ask yourself the question, ‘Do you want to share this, or keep this between us right now?’
- If the answer is no, honor that. If the answer is yes, proceed and share.
With anything you’re first starting to implement, there have been times when my body has gone, ‘I want to keep this between you and I,’ and I have still shared. Especially with the people in your life where you feel open and vulnerable with, this will be a good exercise in honoring the feeling of wanting to keep something sacred.
Other times when I I would feel a ‘no’, I decided to keep that thought or experience sacred and didn’t share. Instead of sharing, I breathed and allowed the thought to pass. Feelings of trust washed over me and I felt closer and connected to myself. I felt like I had my own back.
The reason I’m sharing this isn’t so that you don’t share thoughts, experiences, and ideas with your friends, family, significant other, or social media community. I am a big believer in authentic and open sharing. It’s more for those times when you have an experience that feels special and sacred to you, and your heart would like to keep that between you and you.
With that said, just because it doesn’t feel right to share right now, doesn’t mean it won’t in the future.
It’s also important to note that sometimes you may feel to share later on. Often if I have a unique experience on a retreat or during a meditation, I savor and keep that close to my heart. Then after time passes and I feel like I have integrated it, I share.
There’s no right or wrong way of doing things, it’s about growing a more connected, sacred relationship with yourself and trusting that you have your back (and your dream’s too).
Do you feel like you want to carve out more space for special, sacred experiences for yourself and your dreams? Give this a go, and tell me what you think… unless you don’t want to share. Then keep that for you 😉
