This week I have not been at the top of my game health-wise and the flooding and general awful weather where I live has not been terribly helpful in this regard. As a result I struggled most of the week to find the headspace for writing or to create something new to share with you this week.
So I decided to do a little research and shout out someone who has sharing their own self-care journey in an inspirational way. I did some Google searches and found a wonderful Instagram account that belongs to Alexandra Elle, who is a writer, a facilitator and a coach. She has four published books, including:
Neon Soul (poetry and prose on resilience and hope): From the book description: “In short, powerful verses, Alexandra Elle shares a hard-won message of hope. Alexandra Elle writes frankly about her experience as a young, single mother while she celebrates her triumph over adversity and promotes resilience and self-care in her readers”
Love In My Language (a collection of poetry, essays, and gentle reminders): From the book description: “Alex shares some of her deepest and darkest moments that are intertwined with faith, hope and finding her light. This body of work explores the ins and out of trials and tribulations, partnered with successes and failures. The pages of “Love in my Language” are filled with poetry, narrative essays, and gentle reminders.”
Her author description includes: In her pre-teen years, writing came into her life by way of therapy and the exploration of healing. Many years later, Alex’s voice and words are being shared poetically in the form of self-love and self-care. Her passion for storytelling, poetry, and narrative writing are infused with life lessons, self-celebration, and building community through reading, writing, and language.
Her Instagram account has incredible self-care/motivational offerings and are varied and often very detailed. She challenges you to think differently about looking after yourself. Some of the things I looked at included:
• 3 things I stopped doing to gain self love
• 3 things I am making peace with in my life
• 6 things I hope you remember in life
• 3 things I stopped doing to gain peace
• 3 things I am learning to accept in my life
• 5 things I stopped trying to force in my life
• You can show yourself love by…….
• Things you don’t always have to be doing……
• Things I am no longer apologising for……..
• Things that made it hard to heal…….
Alex also has a list of links to other resources and products including her books, her podcast ‘hey, girl’ (about sisterhood, storytelling and self-care), and her meditation YouTube channel.
Alex_elle (click link to visit Instagram page)
Here is a link to an interview (click link to read/listen) that you may like to listen to, where Alex Elle talks about self-care as community care and as a way towards generational healing.
It is about 50 minutes long and there is also a transcript at the bottom of the page that allows you to read the episode if you would rather do that (or if you cannot listen to or download the interview).
*Trigger warning* Alex does reference her own childhood trauma, but she does not go into detail. There are however occasional references to things that occurred during her childhood. She focuses more on more how those experiences drive her to change the experience for her own children and dismantle the cycle of trauma and fear for them. She also talks about healing her relationship with her mother and her wonderful relationship with her grandmother.
A powerful statement from Alex: “But it’s interesting, what those triggers have taught me and how raising three daughters in a loving home, in a nurturing home, in an honest home, in a home that encourages them to show up as their best and most beautiful and most flawed and messy selves, it just reminds me that there’s the lesson — that I didn’t have to continue the cycle of trauma and hurt and fear; that me and my husband can dismantle that for our daughters. And I think that really shows me that I’m not just mothering them, but I’m also mothering myself.”
She also says these words (herunder) that resonate with me so deeply, and if you read my article last week you will know why:
“So self-care as community care, for me, is the filling up of self so that we can pour into others and not be depleted. So as I mentioned earlier, I watched my grandmother do this, I watched my mother do this, and so on and so forth. So deciding that, wow, that’s — for me, that is not how I want to move through the world. I don’t want to pour into anyone with my last drop and then have nothing left for myself, because then when it comes time to give again, I’ll have nothing. So essentially, it’s this refueling. It’s this reconnecting and realigning with the self so that we can show up intentionally”.
“….I think often folks who identify as women, we are always kind of taught at a young age to be the strong one and caretake, be it from a mothering standpoint or even from taking care of siblings or taking care of our parents. And we’re supposed to do that with a smile on our face, with nothing in our cup, and gladly. And I am dismantling that, as a Black woman from my lineage, because I want my three daughters to look and say — to look at me and see the permission that they don’t have to do that. They don’t have to be tired. They don’t have to be broken-down and worn down”
“I believe in the power of choice. And the reason why I believe in it so deeply is because for so long I felt like I did not have a choice”.
So take some time to browse through Alex’s Instagram account and give her a follow if you think you might want to visit again! Listen to the interview or read the transcript if you are interested in learning more about this inspirational woman!
Here is a collage I put together of some of her inspirational quotes:
Now, for the music section this week you are going to be subjected to my love of deeply poetic songs and also to my sense of humour. The first is a song called ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen. The layered, powerful and emotional lyrics have always resonated with me.
The second is a parody of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen, another favourite of mine (the original version I mean!). This song, Bohemian Catsody, almost was the end of me when I watched it. I laughed so much and I am sharing it with you because we all need something like this right now!
Have a great week everyone !
