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Self Love. Oh just those two words bring up volumes. Self Love is something that has been just out of reach for most of my life. It seems like every time I start to like and appreciate myself something happens to show how stupid I was to ever think that I had any worth or value at all. I guess self love is one of those things that goes along with that line about being like the fish - surrounded by the crashing waves, yet completely unbothered by it. To have self love, self worth and self acceptance - you just can’t let what other people think or your own preconceived notions of what other people think about you, take root in your soul. You have to be surrounded by the noise, but tuned into your own frequency.
Over the past couple of months I have finally begun to grasp some self love and like many ever important moments, it occurred in the midst of the most mundane. I was trying on some new dresses I had purchased online. When I put one of them on and looked in the mirror I just felt a warm glow surround me and I realized that this is who I am! This is me. I don’t like high heels or wearing cocktail dresses or 10 pounds of makeup. I don’t "do" my hair either. I’m an adventure gal. While I love dresses, I go more for the casual flair. I prefer comfort and utility to high style. I’d rather go on a hike or go crafting rather than the proverbial high end dinner date. I like to have experiences; not appearances. Another thought soon followed - why am I trying to fit into someone else’s world, when I should be looking for someone who wants to fit into mine? I always seem to go after friends and men who just want something different for their life. And I wonder why no one ever wants to do the things I want to do! I’ve decided that I just need to start doing what makes me happy and hopefully somewhere along the way I’ll find some friends who like those things and who knows maybe even a man too. The hard part is being okay with doing things on your own for a while. Sometimes life doesn’t leave you any choices. You either sit back and watch life pass you by or you forge out on your own to have the experiences your soul craves. It can be hard having an experience you wish you could share, but that’s where gratitude comes into play. Gratitude says “you get to see this, do this and experience this - enjoy it! No Matter What!” And this is where I am with Self Love - I know who I am and I am happy about it. I am also going to start doing some of the things I have wanted to do, but haven’t because I didn’t want to do them alone. Some of them small like renting kayaks at a local city park and paddling around the lake. Some of them are a little bigger like exploring a nearby state park. Some of them are really big and somewhat scary like traveling - I personally want to go explore up the northeast coast, the Great Lakes, Lake Tahoe and the Red Woods. I plan on tackling the small and medium sized ones this year and make plans to tackle one or two of the big ones next year. I guess the best thing about starting to love and accept yourself is the sense of freedom and gratitude that begins to emanate from your soul. The things that used to bother you don’t and you don’t feel so lost anymore - at least I don’t. My situation isn’t great, being friendless in your current city of two yers isn’t fun, but if this is where I had to go to grasp self love - then it was worth it.
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I had been feeling rundown for over a week. I was just exhausted. Everyday tasks seemed daunting… I felt overwhelmed by life and that overwhelming feeling had taken on a new form… oppression. I felt oppressed. I enjoyed nothing, had energy for nothing and only wanted my comfy mattress and warm covers. I wanted an escape, but I didn’t know what to escape to… I started praying… asking for help because I didn’t want to feel the way I felt anymore and I didn’t know how to fix myself. Then it hit me: spiritual problems manifest as physical problems. Then I heard “I TRUST”. I TRUST, I TRUST, I TRUST… It almost had a beat to it. Over and over and over in my mind I heard I TRUST. I allowed this to become a mantra for the rest of my day. I TRUST became a backdrop in my mind.
As I went through my day at work with the mantra on automatic repeat, I realized I had been putting a lot of pressure on myself as of late. I had gained weight and couldn’t fit into most of my pants so I wanted to loose the weight as quickly as possible. I was also contemplating going back to school and felt that I was in a now or never moment to change the trajectory of my life. I was desperately searching for my next right step in so many areas of my life and I didn’t have any true clarity… or did I? I realized over the course of the that day that I had been living out of my own power, instead of God’s power. This is why I felt so powerless. I was running on my own steam and my steam cannot sustain me. Something had to change. Again the mantra “I TRUST”. As I continued through my afternoon something interesting began to happen within my mind. Those unrelenting and scary discussions I was having within began to hit a brick wall: I have to loose these 15 pounds so I can wear my clothes and go on a date or two….. I TRUST; I have to keep up with my Disciple classwork… I TRUST; I have to get these ten things done this week so I can keep moving myself forward already…. I TRUST; I have to find a new job and pick a master’s program and figure what in the hell I am going to do with my life now or I’ll…. I TRUST. By the end of the day those thoughts and many others couldn’t even really get started in my head - the mantra would automatically kick in and kick those unhealthy and unhelpful thoughts out. I also noticed that my energy level had picked up and I was beginning to feel like myself again. The next morning I awoke feeling a million times better. It seems as though, at least for this time, a spiritual problem had, indeed, manifested into a physical problem. I wasn’t physically sick, I had been spiritually sick and my creator led me to the source of the problem. I need to trust. I need to trust God, I need to trust myself and I need to trust others and the universe to have my back. I did not have a physical ailment, I had a spiritual ailment - a trust issue. I also have to learn to stop living out of my own power and start living out of God’s power. I am still learning what this means, but for now I have the mantra “I TRUST” knocking out unhealthy thought patterns so I can breathe and enjoy life again. |
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