Daisy Forrest

I had been working away at a piece of content and then got to the putting a picture of myself into it bit.
I set off happily enough, came across this one, laughed, chose it.
Then some one started making me second guess myself.
“That makes you look ridiculous. Who do you think you are ? Do you want people to talk shit about you ?”
I froze.
I shut down Canva and started mindlessly scrolling Instagram seeking nervous system regulation. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t come.

I turned to my tarot cards and journal (Rachel Jean of The Wandering Moon Co’s amazing The Wandering Journal and Kim Krans’ The Wild Unknown Tarot currently) and breathed deep into my discomfort, my freeze. “What can help me with this discomfort?” I asked. The Lovers, reversed. Gently reminding me to build a stronger relationship of love, adoration and acceptance to all my parts.

I needed a Selves walk.

I rolled myself a cbd cig and put another layer of fleece on myself and called the dog.

Outside, I lit up and asked them : ok guys, who’s feeling what kind of way about this picture ?

(NB : Baby and Hermione are Exiles, Glitter and Spinelli are Firefighters and Florals is the Manager)

Baby : I love it because it’s bright and colorful.

Hermione : I fucking hate it.

Ok, interesting, I said to them. Continue.

Florals : I like it because it’s a Florals fest and also we look happy and kind in this photo.

Glitter : lol it’s hilarious – we were trying on the leggings that were a gift from Clémence and Tynkélé was like dude you have so much stuff in that exact pattern so we found it all and put it on and made Tynkélé take a photo to commemorate laughing so much.

Spinelli : shudders in disgust, we don’t look like a dangerous succubus in this, don’t like it.

Aha. So even though parts of us love this photo, it makes some of us feel unsafe.

Hermione is the kid who was bullied for being herself, Spinelli is the defense mechanism that grew to protect us.

That was Hermione’s voice I first heard. She’s the part that needs regulation. That’s root chakra fear of being unanchored via rejection. Heart chakra fear of being unloved by self and others.

I keep walking, and reach a part of the garden that’s secluded from the house. I open Spotify, pick out a song that makes me want to shake my hips, activating the root chakra, and feel big universal love and gratitude for my heart chakra. For me that’s Guts “and the living is easy” right now, which I highly recommend for these purposes, but feel free to replace with your own.

I am aware that I have the privilege of having a space to go off and do this shit by myself in. Of the privilege of being able bodied and on the right medication to do so.

Be creative with the ressources you have available to you, and remember looking after yourself enables you to help others later.

I danced. I stretched. I swayed and twerked and paced and stomped. I sang along to the song and intentionally focused on the feeling of being big and it being safe. Left, right, left, right went the beat of the song, my feet and knees and hips and arms and I hammered that message into my anxious monkey brain. I’m big and I’m safe. I waved my arms wider and wider, bent down lower and lower. The song is 5mins long and after 3 I was grinning, laughing at myself raving in my oversized pink fleece pyjamas in the garden at 9am.

I came back in, had some more tea and another cig and then wrote this.

Neuroplasticity is the fact that neural networks are created from use and you can grow new ones from repeating things over and over again, by learning things.

Ever noticed how quickly you can memorise something by reading it or speaking it whilst pacing up and down ? That’s the left-right bilateral stimulation of your nervous system that’s engraving that information into your brain.

You can teach yourself anything.

Take your Selves for a walk and have a chat with them. See if you can challenge any of their beliefs. See if you can show yourself more gentleness today.

It was important I worked though that block because I want to be able to show up about things I’m passionate about. Every time I manage to push my window of tolerance and soothe myself like that, I heal a bit.

I especially enjoy using walking and dancing for this, maybe because of all the Sagittarius (hip and thigh ruling) energy in my chart. But you can practice bilateral stimulation on yourself simply by tapping your fingers against each other or on yourself. Or use your own chart and the associations to your most represented energies for inspiration. On the subject of the zodiac and body parts, keep your eyes open for my upcoming podcast “Vitamin Astro” with Emily from Olive Astrology via Universal Sync – we’ve got a whole episode on this coming ! I’ll link it here once it’s out x