I sat in a group the other day of wonderful women, women who have witnessed my break downs, and build ups, allowed me to cry and recover and run for cover, expose my tender emotional belly and stick with me till it is soothed or transformed. The topic of loving ourselves came up briefly. It set my questioning and self doubting mind into a flurry of contemplation and into my never ending analysis and fertile inquiring. I looked at some recent events in my life and realized that if I cannot love all the parts of me, I cannot love myself. If I deny my occasional outburst of sour wit, and the nose dive into negativity that talking about politics and world events creates within me that cannot be quieted and leaves the faces around me blank, that twang of jealousy I might feel about things that I realize later don’t really matter to me anymore, and how foolish I may have looked and now feel, the play in my mind of cruelty I could inflict if not checked by my opposite angel of understanding, my hurting that could wield a flurry of directed pain, my heated monologue into the mirror at feeling wronged, and then the envelope of ridiculousness I am overwhelmed by….and on and on, then I am betraying myself. I have kicked my butt more in my life for my dark side, for my faux’s and pa’s and pain but if my love for myself does not include the darkness, the pain, the fear, the fire, can I truly be loved by myself totally.? It goes beyond beautiful affirmations meditatively spoken in hopes of drowning out the voices of my little children of dark thoughts that live at my Roots and are waiting to be given their chance to speak and be rescued. They want to be heard, their pain to be voiced, maybe loud and voice-iferous, to be loved, to be transformed, to be embraced, and finally be accepted and take permission to disappear into a new, bright, softened place to dwell.
“If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you had best teach it to dance.” George Bernard Shaw
“How do we summon the right blend of practical love and constructive anger?” Rob Brezsney
“Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.” (and about yourself) David Leviathan
My willingness to get to the Root and Heal, and shine the light on all of me, might transform me in some unpredictable helpful way.
Love to you from Sharon Ann