When I was younger, I learned that if I gave of myself to others, I would ensure their love.
I began to become organized around other people’s needs and desires, learning to tune out my own for the promise that I wouldn’t be abandoned or ever be lacking in love.
Love translated in my system as safety and safety was something I was constantly seeking in a body riddled with chronic pain, illness, and a baseline of hypersensitivity.
Years later, I began to learn that love didn’t mean that I had to sacrifice or compromise around my needs.
I also learned that safety wasn’t something that could be sought outside myself, but something that I had to learn to create within.
My relationship with love transformed and deepened when I learned to devote myself to tend to the forests and foliage of my inner landscape.
True self-love began to bloom from this space of honoring myself and taking care of myself in the exact ways that felt most supportive to my deepest sense of alignment and truth.
Fundamental safety started to take root as I committed to living in continuous devotion and alignment to this truth.
This consistency and commitment in the way that I was choosing to show up with myself helped me to integrate some very profound fundamental truths:
I couldn’t be abandoned if I didn’t abandon myself.
Love is a state of being that emerges from a foundation of reverence and unconditional acceptance of all that we are.
The more that I nurture myself, the more available I am to embody and radiate the love that I am and serve the world from a place of overflowing fullness and wholeness.
I truly believe that loving ourselves is an avenue for loving the world back into wholeness with every cell of my being.
When I first awakened this morning and felt the gentle stirring of my body trying to find its way back into consciousness, I didn’t immediately think of my long to-do list and the numerous things that I would or wouldn’t have the energy for.
I didn’t start trying to organize my day’s structure, time blocking everything and taming every last bit of space, so my attention was left no room for wandering or free rein.
I didn’t rush to get ready, quickly checking my emails and move straight into my morning routine and rituals, already silently imposing my ideals around how this day was going to go and how productive I was going to be.
And, this is progress.
In those precious moments between sleeping and waking, I let stillness find me.
I did not force movement to happen. I did not force anything to happen. I allowed my breath to move me.
My muscles and bones began to slowly unfurl as my skin kissed the air, bristling at the icy fingers of winter morning’s caress.
I snuggled deeper, seeking the safety of the cocoon of blankets still warm and fresh with the imprints of slumber.
Allowing my eyes to blink open slowly, I adjust to the darkness tempered with points of light streaming through the curtains.
I ask myself, what would feel most pleasurable and nourishing for me today?
