self acceptance is liberation!

June all about self acceptance and pride!! Happy Pride Month to everyone and those who are queer all year! ;)

I love to write about self acceptance and would love to share a bit of my story with it here with you!! I’ve learned through struggle, trial and error that if you acknowledge and work with the traits that are innate or natural to yourself and “water” the garden that is yourself and your life, then you can find true connection to what you believe in, and you can live your life in a liberated way and can use your creativity to dream up fantastic wonders!

I want to share with you how I incorporate that mindset into my daily habit because I think it’s a rinse and repeat type of activity!!

I suggest waking up, and not doing screens for at least 20 minutes to gain a sense of silence and leave.Theb after that journaling somehow (audio or written) so that you can get in touch with your thoughts in your life and the physical act of writing will make you have to think about and draw out content and you get to know facets of yourself and then the meditative process will calm your mind and help you navigate and feel relaxed through your daily routines— plus when do we ever get to just sit and do nothing?

Then you can look at a mirror and make eye contact with yourself because it is true that making eye contact with someone will help you get closer to them and if you connect with yourself that’s a powerful tool for knowing what emotional states are going through, what you’re thinking, if you like you can take notes on that process and it’ll just a great tool for self knowledge and acceptance.

I also recommend getting crystals that are important to you, go through what properties each gem has and then stock up on the ones that will influence your life and the way you want them to because it really is about intention setting and helps you “rinse and repeat” every morning because they symbolize significance to yo. Plus they are “living” structures in a scientific sense, so their energy really does help balance you.

I also recommend if you can afford it treating yourself every once in a while to just random gift that you want, and if you can’t afford it I recommend window shopping like going on Etsy or eBay or just online stores and save lots of ideas to your cart and just think about them and when the time comes that you do have money or someone asks for a wishlist- now you have the “tab saved” and can get them! Even it you never get the item, it’s still fun to shop around.

Also I recommend skin care especially on emotionally challenging days because it’s very relaxing, it’s a light touch-based activity you also get somatic benefits from. It’s very soothing, almost like what is it called EFT or emotional freedom technique EFT where you tap on your skin to post clarity and focus. It’s also just wise to do skin care because we’re in the sun daily and just taking 20 minutes out of our day to do a good skin care helps increase self acceptance and comes with like a level of dignity and value within yourself when you accept yourself and help yourself wholly as a human, that has all the flaws and all the capabilities!

I say you have pride in who you are, we were born to be who you’re made to be, and just because some people are just genetically worn different with skin, hair, body type, eye color, you name it, everybody’s unique, and to accept your whole self as it was given to you and as you can use your capabilities to change for good, that’s what we would like here at TAOGOI!! We would love to see people get out on trail, taking on their self acceptance journey, packing it out-packing it in and sharing the value of time in nature!!

We are very proud to be in the final stages of creating our poetry book for you, and can’t wait until it’s done and available!! Look for Allie’s blog post this Sunday!!

Mine was late because of a broken phone screen that locked me out of Google Docs!!

You guys are the best!

-Abigail