A new relationship with one’s self

Soulcare Weekly Planner Giveaway

As ironic as it may sound, the most important take away that I got after going through cancer treatments was the need to nurture myself more and yet I didn’t know how”.

This is an interview with an outstanding person Lana Jelenjev – Family Life and Development specialist, owner at Smart Tinker, a mother of 2 children and a breast cancer thriver (as she prefers to call herself). Her life journey brought her to a point when she had to reshape her priorities and start a new relationship with herself. She has designed a Soulcare Weekly planner – a tool which helps switching from “doing” to “being”.

 

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How did you come up with the idea of Soulcare Weekly Planner?

To answer this question, I would have to start with how I realized that I wasn’t paying attention to the caring of my soul. You see after going through chemotherapy and radiation, I realized that most of the treatments that I got were focused primarily on my body. My medical team, great as they are were more curative in their approach. But one of the things that cancer thrivers (yes, I don’t agree with the survivor term because we do more than just surviving) face with is the thought “but what if it comes back again?”

I don’t have anxiety attacks nor gone through depressive bouts but during the time that I was doing treatments and shortly after, I realized that the mere thought of going through the ordeal again made me feel jittery. I started getting palpitations. Like many I also suffer from chemo brain, a phenomenon of temporary fogginess in memory and focus that post chemo patients experience. All these made me realize the need to ground myself more.

I was fortunate enough to attend non-violent communication course with Yoram Mozenson. He helped me communicate with myself compassionately and NVC became a tool for me to check-in with myself with what I feel and what I need. By using this, I realized that the “new me” does not fit in with who I was before breast cancer. I was struggling to do multi-tasking which is something that is deeply ingrained to me as a woman, mother, and newbie entrepreneur. I was also having difficulty being in the present and nurturing myself. Ironic if we think about it, the most important take away that I got after going through cancer treatments was the need to nurture myself more and yet I didn’t know how.

So I tried different ways of incorporating mindfulness in my daily activities. I changed my definition of “accomplishment” , redefined my Circles of Connection (side note, if you haven’t done it please download the tool for free and it will give you clarity on the relationships you are nurturing in your life!) and I started asking myself the hard questions in life. I realized that by looking inward, I would re-learn how to care about myself and not just physically but more importantly about my being – my soul. Hence the Soulcare Weekly Planner came into mind. It’s a compilation of what I feel as important to not just live a life of groundedness but to start a new relationship with one’s self.

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What is your understanding of the notion of caring for the soul?

My understanding of the soul is your authenticity. The soul is the person that you are, not who you are becoming . Marianne Williamson said “the soul is the truth of who we are”. I definitely agree with that.

What can you tell someone, who is skeptic about the very existence of soul?

Remember the saying “trust your guts/intuition?” There is more to it than just your body talking to you. In the excerpts from the writings of Paramahansa Yogananda he wrote:

Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm.”. Intuition is the the soul speaking but we only hear it when we really pay attention to ourselves.

How can one not forget in this aggressive materialistic world about nurturing his soul?

Sometimes it takes a life jolting experience to remember to reconnect with one’s self and to put soulcare as one of our priorities. That’s what happened to me. Breast cancer came into my life and in our family’s lives. Fast forward to 21 days of radiation, 11 cycles of chemotherapy, a lumpectomy, and 25 injections of immune therapy and countless number of blood works and other tests, I came out of these experiences wanting to share what I learned for myself.

You don’t have to go through what I went through to start looking after “you”!

What would you recommend to those who start using your planner and find it difficult to think in the terms of soul caring?

What I would say is it’s not a “must”. It’s a tool to use as a gentle reminder to one’s self. The soul passages are there to inspire you and the soul quests are prompts to get you asking questions about yourself. See it like an ongoing series about yourself, “who is….?” And the weekly planner, is meant to capture the moment. Your highs, those that you would like to remember, and what you are grateful for. It also makes you more intentional on the people that you would like to connect with, how you would like to feel and what you can do to nourish those feelings. These are all gentle nudges packed in the Soulcare weekly planner and it’s not an end all or be all. I would like for each one using it to approach it as an exploration of one’s self – give yourself permission to go as deep as you want to and in as frequent as you want.

My dear readers, if you want to become a lucky owner of this amazing Soulcare planner, please, write your definition of “caring for the soul” and your email address in the comments field. The authors of 3 most captivating definitions will be chosen and they will receive a downloadable version of Soulcare Planner.

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