Love Yourself Enough

This piece is written and shared with my hands in namaskar and my head bowing to the strong women in my life who shared this phrase with me- Love Yourself Enough. Which we then morphed into an invitation to take action - Do you love yourself enough to step forward and take action? 

In continuing with the theme of transformation and coming to center, there is a thread of love that is woven within each and it is very pronounced.  A thread of love. Woven with a thread of will and determination, woven with a thread of steadfastness and volition, woven with a thread of courage and commitment. Yes, let me wrap myself in a tapestry woven with those threads!

What is it that we stand for? What is it that we allow to be, allow to surround ourselves to be surrounded with, to be encompassed by?

Do we allow love? Do we accept love? Do we have love for ourselves?

I have found it to be easier show love to another, to give love to another than it is to love myself. Let’s be clear here, I know that I cannot find love and that I cannot get love. I know that love resides within me and that I am love. Sometimes I forget this. Sometimes I forget who I am. When I forget, I am reminded that loving myself requires commitment and focus. I can find myself easily distracted, feeling the outward pull and forgetting my true internal nature, the essence of who I am.  I notice how my attention and energy is easily diverted to others, to the external, to that which is outside of me.

It is like driving on a highway with billboards.  Have you ever noticed them? On some stretches of road there are so many, so many billboards, so many invitations to draw your attention away from your intention, your focus, from where you are going, to what you have set forth to do. The stories show up like this, like the billboards, “I don’t have time to love myself, I have to do for others.” “It is selfish to love myself, I was taught to put others before me.” What I have found when I sit with these thoughts, is that there is another narrative laying underneath, right there below the surface. Once I excavate through that first layer, more is here to be discovered.

For me, I have found that beneath the surface stories, lies this narrative, “it is scary to love myself.” “I am afraid to be me, to be the real me, to expose myself, my authentic self.” What is my authentic self you may ask? For me, I have found that my authentic self is the voice that KNOWS. It knows beyond needing. It knows, a deep inner knowing. A knowing that is always here.

This knowing is love. The not knowing is fear. The remembering is love. The forgetting is fear.

My authentic self is also the voice that wants to speak up and say something, when it knows that what is being said is not right and it doesn’t feel good.  As I continue to connect with myself, by paying attention to the subtle messages my body and the environment tell me, I notice my authentic self bubble up and the tendency I have to stuff it down, to shut it off, to cover it up. Simply put, I ignore it. I ignore it because I tell myself by ignoring it, it will go away. Though I find that ignoring this inner voice, these messages that were once subtle are no longer subtle, they get louder and they show up so pronounced that I can no longer ignore them. In fact, they become so big it feels like it is a lot to bear. And in that bigness, the fear expands.

At times this pull to ignore it seeps into my writing, and I do not honestly write in my journal. I do not share myself authentically in my journal. Does this resonate with you?  Are you familiar with what I am sharing? I am so fearful of being me that I show only fragments of myself, slivers, pieces.

Yes, you read that right. I show up only revealing fragments of myself, little slivers of me. I only show pieces of me out of fear. Out of fear of what might be, out of fear of what might happen.

Are you familiar with the movie Say Anything?  There is a quote from the movie, “I can say anything to you.” Somewhere I learned that “saying anything” is not good. I have learned it is not good because of the way it is received.  This is also coming up for me. Folks say they are open, that they want to talk, that they want feedback, that they want to hear what you have to say. The receiver, the one who is listening, hearing or reading is actually not ready to receive or only picks up pieces of what is being said, what is being shared.  I get it. I grasp the understanding that folks can only meet you where they are at, that we have to shift what we are saying so the message can be delivered, can be heard, can be received. I also get that I cannot control what one is going to get, what one chooses to receive.  I know that from my own experiences.

We can only receive that in which we are ready and willing to receive. That in which we are open to receive. We can say we want to receive and that receiving is reliant on, that receiving is dependent on our state. The state in which we are in, the place in which we are at.

I just had a visual of me sleeping and someone talking to me. When I am sleeping and someone comes to talk with me, to say they love me or to offer forgiveness, I am in a sleep state so I am not ‘really’ receiving. Same thing when I am in a world of hurt, full of anger and sadness and feeling alone, no matter what you say or how much you say it, I am going to remain in that place of hurt and sadness until I am not longer in that place. A piece of me wants to write and I am doing it now, that I remain there until I am ready to no longer be in that place, which is for me, is part true. When I am ready to drop the anger, move through the hurt then a huge vast spaciousness opens up within me and I am able to receive.

But I digress… bringing us back to this feeling of control, that I can control how one is going to receive. I spent a lot of energy in this desire to control. The words I choose, the words I choose not to use. What I choose to say, how I choose to say it. All of this energy to ensure that what I am saying is received. But is it received? No. No. No, it is not. Why? Because what I have to say has little to do with how it is received. I can spend all of this time, all of my energy on what to say and how to say it and it relies heavily on who is receiving and the state that they are in.

How much then is lost?  How much of the authenticity is lost here in this meeting the person where they are? Are we speaking for them or are we speaking for us? Why are we even speaking at all? Who is actually speaking? Is it me that is speaking or is it the me that wants to be heard?  I know you know about this, the part of you that wants to be heard. This voice that pops in and starts to explain, justify and defend repeating conversations over and over again in the mind on what I could have said, what I should have said and questioning what I did say. It is exhausting.

I see how there are different aspects of sharing. Here are a few ways of sharing that I have experienced myself. One way sharing, sharing to share, maybe even a sharing to tell. Two way, sharing to be heard, to be understood. Mutual dialogue, sharing to grow, sharing to expand. 

A one-way share is fixed, it is already set with its intention. In a one way share the person sharing is set on what they are going to say and how it is going to play out. They are set in their way, fixed, not flexible. Rigid, firm. They are not really listening.  

Two way sharing more flexible, more responsive more dynamic. Both parties are sharing and they can be open, a bit more flexible and appear more responsive and they can also remain committed to their stance in which they entered the dialogue with so they can move back and forth from and open, flexible stance to a fixed, rigid place.

With mutual sharing, there is shared respect.  A level of showing up and accepting. There is no end goal, no stance of right and wrong. It is simply a sharing, an expression. There is ease. There is acceptance. Have you been met here in this space? It is lovely to be here. To be heard. To be seen. To be acknowledged. To be loved. To be accepted. To be received. As. You. Are. There are no hidden agendas, there are no back stories, there are no preconceived notions. You simply are. It is truly beautiful. I find myself discovering relationships in which there is this mutual respect, this space to honor one another in a mutual way. It is profound. Truly profound.

Back to the analogy of a road, if you are on a one-way road, cars can join in and merge and go with the flow. You stay your course and expect others to join in and go with you. With two-way traffic we are going in opposite directions and we meet up at intersections. You can continue on your way or you can turn and go in a different direction.  And then there is traffic in India. Have you experienced this?  It looks as if no one is going anywhere and simultaneously everyone is going somewhere.  You know what? You do. There is a mutual aspect here, a recognition that everyone is on their path, going their own direction and you are too. You see the other car, the rickshaw, the cow and you acknowledge where they are and they acknowledge you. It is mutual. No one cuts you off, no one ignores the rules. There is a mutual understanding that we are all going somewhere and here we are, all going somewhere.  We hold space. We offer space and slowly, slowly you make your way. No one is better off, no one is shut out. No one is left behind, we are all on our paths going our own ways and there is a mutual understanding, a mutual respect that we are all going there, now. We are all on our way.

Words, spoken and written are received the way they are perceived. If one is open and receptive, they receive that which is meant for them to receive. If one is defensive and there is a wall, then there may be little receiving, little pieces slip through the cracks. If there is anger or resentment, then the words that are shared may only resonate with what one is looking for to validate or confirm the state in which one is in. One may shun the words, toss them to the side, feeling that the words do not resonate, do not make sense, are not aligned.

Does that mean though that you do not speak up or out based on how the person is going to perceive what you have to say? Do you limit your words, silence yourself out of fear of how someone is going to act, how someone might respond? Are you silencing yourself then from a perception of what might be, of a perception of how what you say might be perceived?

What is arising for me now is that this is all about me and you, the speaker. The one who is doing the speaking. It is not about the receiver. For how the receiver receives is dependent on the state of the receiver and that can not be controlled. I know, I have tried. I have tried to reframe, to say things in a different way. I have varied the message I have wanted to say all in efforts for it to be received, for it to be heard in the way I meant, the way I intend it to be received. It is not about how it is received. Well, it is and it isn’t. What is more important, for me now, I am noticing, is that I say what I feel I called to say, rather than allowing it to sit within me. For too long, I have sat with things, had conversations in my mind, received hurtful words and phrases as if I am deserving of them. As if it is okay. I have stood there absorbing and taking in, taking on without questioning.

No longer. No thank you. I am no longer willing to reduce myself to someone small. I am no longer willing to accept hurtful words and judgements. I am no longer submissive. I choose to rise up. I stand up. To speak up and take action.

You know why? I love myself enough to do that. I love myself to say enough. I love myself to say, no longer. I love myself to say this is not acceptable. I love myself to say I am done with the way you speak to me, the way you look at me. I love myself enough to say, your view of me does not fit with me, with the true story of myself. It does not align with who I am, what I know of myself.

These words come from a place of fullness, from a place of being whole, complete. From this place, I see with immense clarity that I do not need, I no longer seek external validation to be me. I do not need to be understood. I do not need to be liked. I do not need to be right. I do not need to feel wrong or bad or ashamed. I do not need. I no longer need. I no longer seek. For what I know to be true is self verifiable. What I know is independent of the external.

In high school I was introduced to Bob Marley. This lyric continues to resonate with me until this day, “emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our mind.”

I have a new perspective on this. It is up to me. I am the one who has to take responsibility for my mind, for how I perceive, for how I receive.  No one else is responsible except me. For my life is based on my own experience, my life does not exist outside of me. If I was not here, I would not have a life. So, it is me, I am the one who has to take responsibility, radical responsibility and action in shifting my mind, shifting the way I have seen, the way I have been taught, the way I have operated.  It is all about me. Not in a selfish way, no, it is not that. Rather, there is no one outside of me who determines how I perceive, so it is up to me to choose, to make a decision. What someone says to me, is not about me, it is about them. It is how they see themselves, how they see the world. What is said is neutral, it sits in a space until I receive it and how I receive it is based on the state I am in, which is reliant on how I have been, the stories I have told myself.  And I am here now, saying I am no longer taking on stuff that is not mine. No longer welcoming in shit that is not mine to take on.  I am keeping what I have and you can keep what you have, for I do not need what is yours. Everything I need is right here within me.

I choose to liberate myself from the binds and constraints that I have placed on myself. The limited, narrow views that I have reduced myself to in order to fit in and be accepted.  I am taking the step to free myself, to emancipate my mind from the limiting stories that I have taken on, the stories that others tell of me that are not true, that are not aligned with me.

I choose to step forward being me.

For really, there is nothing less than I can do.

Fearlessly being me,

Sara

As I type these final words the lyrics “It is a new dawn, it is a new day and I am feeling good” emanate from the kitchen where my mom is preparing dinner. I cannot make this up!