Spoonies: Give Yourself Grace

Hello and welcome to Give Yourself Grace for Spoonies, with me, Keziah Gibbons. I’m a meditation teacher with lived experience of living with pain and fatigue, and the pacing and other adjustments that we need to make for ourselves when living with or through these experiences. This course is for you if you are living with chronic fatigue, burnout of any kind, whether neurodivergent or neurotypical, uneven energy or any other limited capacity. It is intended as a space where you can give yourself rest and kindness, for as long as you need it. In this first introductory part, I’ll talk you through the meditations which follow and what you can expect.

This is a short, gentle practice to allow you to sense into your energy. It is much kinder to your body - and to yourself as a whole being - to check in with your energy at the beginning of the day, so that you have an idea of what your capacity is, than to attempt a day that is not aligned with today’s capacity. You can do this practice today or any morning upon waking.

The guidance invites you to find a state of relaxation, and if you fall asleep then that is simply an honouring of what your body needs. Even if you don’t find it easy to fall asleep, the practice of relaxing and giving yourself intentional rest time can help you to feel restored, or simply to process what you have already experienced today. The guidance ends with a gentle awareness and you can of course stay where you are for as long as you wish after the practice.

This is a short practice for times of low concentration and energy. When experiencing brain fog or impaired focus, it can be helpful to come back to very simple awareness and this is the purpose of this practice. It doesn’t ask you to imagine or concentrate for too long, and the guidance is designed so that even if you can’t stay focused for the whole five minutes of practice, you are invited to bring your awareness back moment by moment.

Our final daily practice is an evening practice, acknowledging your day, and creating space for gratitude, and for recovery, with the understanding that gratitude for something and the need to recover from it can exist in the same space. You are invited to release your day before sleep. This practice can be done in the evening before bed or even as you’re in bed, and can be followed by any sleep meditation - my 99 Blessings, Healing Dream Sanctuary and Self Reiki for Sleep are all popular tracks which you’ll find here on the platform.

With the Permission to Rest practice, I invite you to start to find ways within yourself to release internalised beliefs about what you should be able to do, to make space for kindness in the times when you can’t do those things, and to give yourself permission to rest when you need to. This is not an easy process, but more than anything I want you to know that you’re not on your own. Because this is a Permission to Rest practice, it is designed to be restful in the guidance. The reprogramming part occurs at an unconscious level, and you do not have to do anything. If giving yourself permission to rest is a process you are not finding easy right now, then I would advise using the practice daily for several weeks or months, until you feel more comfortable with making allowances for yourself, and honouring whatever your needs are in this moment.

The self-advocacy practice is a reminder for you that you do have the right to ask for what you need. It is perhaps the most energetic practice as it is designed so that it can be used before a meeting, conversation or event in which you expect to be self-advocating, but can also be used daily if that reminder that it’s OK for you to exist and need what you need is something that is helpful for you at this period in your life. Internalised ableism is a tricky thing and it’s valid to give yourself that reminder. This version of the practice involves stepping or moving in; if this is not suitable for you today please skip to the next track which has a version of the practice that does not require movement.

The self advocacy practice is a reminder for you that you do have the right to ask for what you need. It is perhaps the most energetic practice as it is designed so that it can be used before a meeting, conversation or event in which you expect to be self-advocating, but can also be used daily if that reminder that it’s OK for you to exist and need what you need is something that is helpful for you at this period in your life. Internalised ableism is a tricky thing and it’s valid to give yourself that reminder. This version of the track does not require any movement.

The final practice is a grieving practice. Living with limited energy, chronic illness, or pain, is hard. If it’s new to you it can be a big change, but even for those of us who have been familiar with this for a while now, we can still have all the feelings of grief. I like to frame grief not as an emotion but as an experience, which can contain many different emotions. There may be a sense of loss, anger, frustration, sadness, perhaps even relief sometimes, and many other things. When grieving, whatever you’re feeling is valid. Use this practice whenever you need to, and be sure to go back to the other practices in the course to support yourself at every stage in your process.