Self-Care

Self-care arrives in the form of a cappuccino and

 spacious journaling time.

***

I’m redefining self-care.

Self-care is an actualization of self-love.

Self-love is new terrain.

The terrain of the heart is a forgotten landscape – which I now intend to explore.

Exploring the depth of the wounds requires a deepening of love and courage.

A courage to become reacquainted with my feelings by feeling all the feelings and releasing the narratives.

The narratives dictate “good” and “bad” emotions, and there are emotions I shouldn’t be feeling, so judges the critic.

The critic adheres to a strict timeline governing healing.

Healing, I am learning, is organic and needs to be freed from the mental constructs of time.

Time to grieve frees me to process and heal.

Healing occurs in the heart of the moment when I radically accept the current experience and the me who I am here and now. 

The me I am here is grieving loss, the lighthearted way I use to navigate my city, and for the part of myself who tolerated unkind behavior from others because that former me didn’t know her worth.

My worthiness to be unconditionally loved by others and by myself is a truth I am claiming.

I claim my worthiness by evolving into my own fierce advocate.

I advocate for relationships formed on respect and trust, and beam unconditional love and golden support – these, I now declare, are non-negotiable essentials in my relationships.

My relationships reflect my relationship with myself.

My relationship with myself heals and transforms through permission to be quiet so I can listen and trust my intuitive voice.

The voice answering my plea for guidance tells me to rest and take sweet care.

Taking sweet care asks me to pause, check in and honor my current needs, which shift from moment-to-moment, day-to-day:

Go to Zumba. Throw a punch. Kick into the air. Sweat.

Soften into enjoying conversations that flow with warmth, humor and beautiful grace with my tribe members and life loves.

Practice yoga. Stretch out the breath in forward folds. Return to the light within through a series of sun salutations.

Rest on the back porch in late afternoon sunshine and read. If sleep begins to beckon, then lean back into the cushions and sleep in the play of shadows and light.

Self-care can only nurture and nourish if fully received.

Receiving wholeheartedly gifts from self requires a rewrite in old narratives.

Narratives demanding that I need to prove my enoughness through going and doing.

Doing, I am reminded, is fueled by replenishing times of non-doing.

In times of non-doing, I return and reconnect to my own innate peace and wholeness.

A wholeness accessed in blooms of busyness by slowing the breath, settling into the current experience and choosing to cultivate ease by letting the moment be exactly as it, and letting myself be exactly as I am.

I am redefining self-care as I transition into living from a place of overflow.

The overflow stems from an inner foundation strengthened in nourishment and restoration, granting a secured steadiness that allows for graceful ease to give to others and to expand my own ability to wholeheartedly receive.

***

Self-care takes shape in crafting playlists that encourage, energize and empower through rhythm and rhyme:

*Wolves – Ben Howard

*White Flag – Joseph

*My Silver Lining – First Aid Kit

*Dust to Dust – Civil Wars

*Boardwalks – Little May & Sonny Alven Remix

*Wolf – First Aid Kit

*Son of A Gun – Lord Huron

*Loba – Shakira

*Plans – Dustin Debutt

*Without You – Oh Wonder

*Slow Down – Scott Orr

Burn

In Brooklyn, the sun finds me. I wake bathed in warmth by early morning light. The sun beams at 5am through curtain-less windows in the living room transformed into my cozy guest room. I emerge into the peace of this moment by resting and luxuriating in the embrace of the sun. I listen to the hum of the awakening city stirring with life outside the windows. I relish the softness of the sheets. I watch the sunlight pour into the still living room, rippling out like a golden carpet over the floorboards.

I breathe out, sink into the bottom of the exhalation and feel my body deeply relax.

I bask in the brilliant morning light, and practice gratitude for the arrival of a heat that is the medicine I seek. This radiance is a dazzling tonic to an emotionally whiplashed heart and racing mind.

The sun-soaked mornings affirm the intuitive pulling to go to New York City. I go to the city to get quiet, to become clear and heal. I travel to the warm welcome of a friend who validates my journey by listening and asking me the questions that propel me forward.

My friend and I walk Brooklyn. We explore bookstores, coffee shops, parks and art institutes. The rhythm of the city is a remedy, and I fall into a steady walking pace, pushing through confusing memories and breaking open into the intensity and energy of New York City.

At a vintage store in Brooklyn, I buy a pair of heels. I decide to slip them on and walk a few blocks, daring to claim a part of myself restless to bloom into confidence, sensuality and wild authenticity.

I catch glimpses of her in windows of restaurants and in the gold-framed mirrors in antique stores. My friend captures her in a quick photo before getting a chocolate dipped ice cream. She intrigues me, this woman I am burning to unflinchingly be, and I return to the photo to remember she is already within me.

She emerges as I diligently choose love and practice forgiveness. This is a disciplined decision made daily that paves a rocky path through the aftermath of a realized truth. Forgiveness is my only way out.

The other options are losing myself into consuming drama, falling into the spiral of repeating thoughts, and letting the perceived betrayal scorch my lighthearted way of being.

I travel these dark roads – some days are the darkest and hardest ones I’ve ever breathed through -- and am stunned into this realization: This is how hurt constricts and closes the heart.

The threat of a closed heart sparks travels to New York. A change of scenery to air out the heart. A trip to bring me home to myself.

The first morning in Brooklyn, I witness the sunrise. There is the dawning of a forgotten feeling: a shimmering excitement for life, a flickering and rising blaze of hope. 

Waking in sunshine, I meditate in the rays, and the joy of the moment almost falls prey to the running thoughts replaying past hurts, projecting fear and anxiety into the future.

The choice is to ruminate in the perceived unfairness of the past, or to be freed from its dizzying clutches so I can continue on and fully experience my life.

Forgiveness.

I forgive to save my life. Forgiveness steps me into the burn. I feel the feelings. I release the narrative around the feelings. I expand into freedom through forgiveness.

Expansion breaks me open to love. Love is my spirit word for my 26^th year – a word guide to gently keep me aligned to my evolving, my becoming, my rising. I’m rising out of past insecurities around worthiness; I’m evolving beyond the dictation by fear, and rising by actively engaging in life lessons from a place of love.

I choose love when I walk the streets in those vintage shoes, and I remember the ache of new shoes on tired feet and the laughter that rinses me clean as my friend narrates stories and makes quick-witted jokes.

Ever upward, I think of New York’s motto as my friend and I stroll under the blazing sun. The heat is like forgiveness. The past burned off and transformed into shimmery insights, prompting me to move onward in love.

Summer Loving, Summer Sweating Playlist:

*I Need A Forest Fire – James Blake, Bon Iver

*Alaska – Maggie Rogers

*Kings of Summer – ayokay, Quinn XCII

*Follow the Sun – Xavier Rudd

*Livewire – Oh Wonder

*Something About You - ODESZA Remix - Hayden James

*Only Love – Ben Howard

*Drive – Oh Wonder

*Wolves Are Waiting – Dustin Tebbutt

*Hamilton - Y’all, this Broadway musical lights me up, channels ambition and energy for “rising up and claiming my shot.” A few of my favorites include these historic characters and moments narrated in hip-hop beats: “Wait For It,” “The Battle of Yorktown,” “Satisfied” & “Burn.”

The Rewrite

Rising into dancer by rooting into the present and directing my gaze forward. Photo by the dazzlingly divine Misty Pittman.

***

The rewrite begins on the evening of the surrender. I am tangled in a web of overwhelm. Overlapping narratives intensify a rising sadness that breaks into a steady, sweeping wave of tears.

I mourn the loss of idealized mentors. I sob to feel the depth of my dizzying fear questioning my enoughness and capabilities with my current professional position. I cry to voice the missing of my creativity – my writing and inspired play channeled into teaching yoga feels neglected these days. I cry to usher forth the thought patterns binding me to self-sabotage and to playing small, and to expose my issues of self-worth that beckon men who emotionally disrespect me.

I am in the aftermath of an intentional betrayal, a harsh revealing of a person’s carefully concealed nature that shifts my rose-colored view of humanity. I am at a lost to know how to heal from this burn simultaneously scorching affection and breaking me free from a disillusioned reality.

I don’t know how to integrate this experience into my story.  Owning this in its entirety triggers a landslide of other tumbling narratives taking turns to remind me of my patterns and perceived failures.

The pattern exists in idealizing those I adore (and I adore intensely), and impulsively projecting my feelings, sensitivities and emotional expectations on these fellow life travelers.  I am wounded by my own high expectations of how I think others should act. I freely and unquestioningly give so much of my heart. I expect others to reciprocate in affection, empathy, openness and trust. But people do not perceive and move about the world as I do, and I need to know this. I do know this, and the repetition of this lesson stings and ignites a fresh wave of tears.

I sink to my knees. I’m losing trust in others. I’m losing faith in myself.

I surrender. I offer the Universe my burden. I whisper that I cannot do this alone. I relinquish the limiting belief that I have to heal on my own. I release the need to want to know “Why?” and rationalize the current experiences. I accept uncertainty. I soften into not knowing, letting go of the attempts to analyze the actions of others.

The breath embraces me. I merge into the present story by noticing the sight of dusk streaking sunlit clouds across a fading sky. I hear the sharp call of geese flying nearby – a tribe united in caring for one another as they travel toward home.

The despair calls me home to myself. The tears purge the obscured narratives, cleansing my insight, and creating space for fuller, deeper breaths. I am vibrantly present in the out-breath, the pouring out, the complete emptying delivering me to the pause that exists between the breaths. In the pause I reconnect to my power, and I listen. The despair is an urgent messenger announcing the desperate need for change.

The change begins by consciously rewriting my own inner narratives. I begin on my knees. I rewrite the way I experience this pain. I weave compassion to encompass all chapters in this journey of learning, rising, breaking, expanding.

The expansion begins by booking a solo ticket to Austin. Every step I take in my independent travels reshapes my confidence and returns me to my innate courage.

In my Austin adventures, and in the adventures that continue when I arrive home, I place courage as the central character. This shining protagonist liberates me from past narratives by exploring the root reasons of my reactions and limiting beliefs from a place of mindful curiosity and open-heartedness.  

Courage challenges the inner critic, propelling me to recognize (again and again) that I am the awareness behind my thoughts. I have the power to choose what I think. And I don’t have to believe every thought that I think. Courage challenges me to show up authentically in every moment – to be present for whatever happens – and dares me to shine even brighter. Shining brighter, I expand my heart, and the expanding heart heals the wounds, opening me to my innate compassion and to the love from friends and family.  

Courage reminds me to rewrite my love story. I’ve been so distracted by supplying my emotional attention to the boy - and by now my pattern with men is so painfully obvious they can all be grouped into one person - so concerned with caregiving to his story, that I have neglected my own love story.

I want my life to a be a love story. Ryan Gosling by my side or me soaring solo, I’m choosing love. I choose exquisite words of kindness and love to fill the inner chambers of my mind. I rewrite the way I belong to myself by falling in love with how I care for myself. I creatively play with my image: I cut my hair short and delight in its sassy bounciness. I wear clothes that fit my body and get rid of clothes that are too big. I paint my lips red, and trace my eyelids with glittery black eyeliner.

I honor the love in my life by purposefully crafting time with beautiful spirits who speak the language of the heart. Always I am dazzled by their light and their courageous risings. I share with them this story of the rising initiated by the deepest wash of despair.

The evening I learn the truth of surrender echoes in the daily writing of my life: in the decision between fear or courage, in the remembering of breathing out completely to fully receive, and in the intentional reshaping of a journey guided by courage, and gracefully, delivering me to love.