I Love You...ahemmmmmm...Me!

How often do you say I love you?  How often do you say I love you to yourself?  With awareness to what feelings arise I read the second question again?  Yikes!  I have to work at cultivating self love. Especially when I find myself enveloped by darkness (a pity party). A party where I question everything about myself and find myself reaching out for validation. I usually find myself acting in this way when I am tired, in an unconscious place, or the sun has been hidden for days.  Sometimes the party extends past party lines where I find myself saying hurtful things to people I love most - this includes myself. Mrs. Critical rears her ugly head and steps on compassion.

It sometimes feels like I am caught in the current of life.  I struggle to breath as it takes me under.  I reach out for a rope, a twig a vine ANYTHING to hold on to. I find when I do not surrender and struggle to control the current I hit the bottom. When I'm scared I rely on someone from my support network to pull me out.  I count on, almost thrive on validation from others.  I feel so lucky so fortunate to have amazing people in my life.  At any given time, even 3am, I could reach out to someone who loves me.  Then WHY the pity party...WHY the darkness?  I struggle with self validation, self compassion.  At the point that I hit the bottom I let fear take over, consume me.  I almost wait at the bottom for an external force to save me.  For someone to prove that I am WORTH it.  The failures in my life are the sharp rocks at the bottom they scrape, poke, cause me to stumble but they aren't what ends it.  It's the culmination of the current, the water, the rocks and ultimately giving up, not to be confused with surrendering.

I read this statement from the universe...Do you really need someone else's validation, permission, acceptance, wink or nod? OR are you ready to give this to yourself? Ready GO...

I wrote a couple weeks ago about a peak pose I was "working" on.  Well if I am fully disclosing, opening myself to vulnerability, I learned a hard lesson on the mat this week.  I learned that if I don't practice said peak pose then I have an excuse..here enters pride.  So I put on my big girl panties and began the work.  Here enters the real culprit FEAR.  I can do said peak pose with a crutch.  When I move away from the crutch I am unable to sustain the pose. Here enters pride and fear.  I walked to the edge of the cliff, I so often reference, and pushed further. AHA...peak pose was held for mere seconds but what happens next isn't pretty. I immediately came down and walked off the mat.  Not because a kid was crying or because I had somewhere to be but because I let fear and pride tell me I was done..."i could have hurt myself doing that" says fear...."a few seconds - you tried"says pride.  What am I denying myself by not living fully, by letting fear and pride rule the roost?  What am I repudiating by not giving myself permission, acceptance, compassion...heck...LOVE?

Let me be clear, I am not saying we should swim alone, never reach out.  I remember a saying "you must love yourself fully in order to fully love others" Sadly, I don't remember who the author of that was but it resonates. My work will be self compassion coupled with self acceptance...self validation and LOVE.