I need you.
I love you.
I cherish you.
I thank you.
My friends.
You reflect back to me all the ways I hold myself back. You support me and adore me and make sure I know when my actions don’t serve me, or when they are out of alignment with my higher self. You give me tough love and you also give me a hug when I need one.
I love you.
I thank you.
I cherish you.
I am you.
To learn more about the SelfLove365 project, click here.
To join the SelfLove365 project, click here.
My friends support me by cheering me on.
My friends help me celebrate, especially when I don’t feel able to.
My friends hold me to my word and express their love, their anger, their sadness, and their reality.
My friends allow me to be me. They love me for who I am. My friends don’t ask me to change who I am.
To learn more about the SelfLove365 project, click here.
To join the SelfLove365 project, click here.
I cherish you, my friends.
Thank you for the phone calls, and the long talks, especially when I am lonely.
Thank you for accepting me for who I am – no judgements.
Thank you for your genuine interest in, and questions about, my life.
Thank you for your tough love, for showing me the places I have yet to grow.
Thank you for your trust, your love, and your presence.
I love you, my friends.
To learn more about the SelfLove365 project, click here.
To join the SelfLove365 project, click here.
Who are you?
I am curious, I am listening.
I see you. I hear you.
I want to know you.
Especially if I already think I know you, I wish to make friends with you anew.
Let me pretend I don’t know you.
Allow me to see who you are today.
I want to know you.
To learn more about the SelfLove365 project, click here.
To join the SelfLove365 project, click here.
I love how this lined up! Today’s theme is making new friends, and tonight I attended the first Calgary post-Great Life Redesign gathering. I knew most of the faces of the women there, but tonight I really had the opportunity to witness their greatness, to be present in their vulnerability, and to hear their voices. I felt seen, I felt celebrated, and I made new friends.
To learn more about the SelfLove365 project, click here.
To join the SelfLove365 project, click here.
These are the people who hold me up when I’m feeling down.
These are the wonders who put a smile on my face and listen to me cry.
These are the crazies who sing off-key and understand my silliness.
These are the serious ones who get my quirks and know that I get theirs.
These are the shining lights who I don’t spend a lot of in-person time with, but their online comments cheer me on.
These are the beautiful souls who want to see me, who want to hear me.
Thank you, friends.
❤
To learn more about the SelfLove365 Project, click here.
Last night, I realized I didn’t trust my friend, B. He told me he would do something, and I questioned him. Then I apologized for being suspicious, but realized it goes deeper than that. I just don’t believe him.
When I started to think about this, I realized that it isn’t just him that I don’t believe, it is everybody. I don’t trust anybody. This becomes readily apparent when I receive compliments or positive feedback. B told me many things last night: He loves being with me, and is so happy he knows me. In the moment of hearing these things, I felt warm and fuzzy, but the insidious voices in my head were already creeping back in to tell me that this is all false. So really, it’s not that I don’t trust him, but rather, I don’t even trust myself. I don’t trust that my being can be good enough, loveable enough, or wanted enough for these messages to be true. I should add here that I do also have a deep (as in buried really, really far down) knowing within myself that I am good enough, loveable enough and wanted enough, and this part is at my core, but very easily covered over by the dark fog of memories and hurts that are easily triggered during my life.
From Project SelfLove365
Several days ago, B suggested to me that I smudge my mental body. Doing this visualization was wonderful – I was able to really see my mental space, and all its dark and dirty corners. As I cleared it out, I felt lighter and the space became cleaner and brighter. Eventually my mental body became a bright open room, with sun streaming in the windows, and a beautiful crystal hanging from the ceiling, reflecting rainbows on all the walls. Immediately after clearing the space, those insidious voices I spoke of tried to creep back in (they became dustballs with eyes) to dirty my mental space again. I quickly realized how much work it takes to keep this space clean.
I recently separated from my husband, so I decided I would also smudge my house (I am speaking of my actual physical house now, not some imaginary thing). This felt cleansing, especially after opening all the windows to air it out afterwards. It seemed to me that by smudging my mental body and my house, I am treating these spaces as sacred. I have the intention to keep these spaces clean, knowing full well that I may let things slide once in awhile and will then need to do some more heavy work.
From Project SelfLove365
Thinking about sacred space made me realize that I have not been treating my body as sacred space. Some of my decisions in the past few days have pushed my body to follow its desires rather than its needs. When there is something I want to do, I have a tendency to ignore my body, and to not check in to see what it needs first (especially sleep). By not listening to my body’s physical sensations, I am not allowing any sort of positive feedback loop to occur (only the unwanted one in which I keep ignoring my body and then I get sick). By not allowing this to happen, I am also not giving myself the chance to trust myself. How can I really be a “HELL YES” to something if my body is saying no? If I am not really a “HELL YES”, then how can anyone trust my answer, especially me, if I can’t even trust it? If I can’t trust myself how can I trust anybody?
This is worth repeating.
If I can’t trust myself, how can I trust anybody?
So, how can I trust myself? I am beginning to ask my body the question and listen for the response. It will come. Right now, my body wants to dance.
Making new friends.
Let me preface this post by saying that I have fallen off the good-eating wagon, even if only for a few days (I am still exercising, though! Just had to throw that in there.) We went house-boating, and for some reason, I took that as license to buy lots of sugary crap. I’ve been eating it, and now I feel sorry for myself. I’m sure the two things are related, somehow.
So, yes, I’m in that blasted poor me phase today. I’ve been feeling sorry for myself (following a good dose of jealousy). A good friend of mine was away on a trip this past week to visit her amazing group of friends (many of whom are people I would so love to meet). At first I thought I was jealous because she knows, and is friends with, people I would love to be friends with. But then it hit me today – I am jealous of the tribe. I have had many close friends in my life, but I’ve never had a tribe. Meghan (a friend I met in April, but she is not the aforementioned friend) has written about her tribe several times, and this really appeals to me. I have never thought about this much before, but for some reason it is important to me now.
I want to laugh and share and be a part of a group of women who really know each other and love each other.
I want to belong.
I want a tribe.
But I’m not sure how to get one.
Today I am grateful for:
Time spent with friends, especially while eating yummy food.
.
Beautiful landscapes.
Knowing the kids had a great first day at their camp today – especially my son, since he was nervous about going for a whole day. He said it was “awesome”!
Sold paintings (thanks Ma!)!
Drawn From the Fire 