Love The World Because The World Loves You

I popped into Walgreens the other day to pick up a few things and couldn’t help but to notice the 50% off Valentine’s Day candies and stuffed animals. The Easter candy going up on the other side of the aisle also served as a reminder that the holiday of love came and went. Mark and I had a really nice long over due dinner at a restaurant that we have gone to every Valentine’s Day since we moved up here to New Hampshire. Without taking away from the celebration and the appreciation that can come from Valentine’s Day, I’ve come to experience love in a much different way. It sits underneath the surface of the love I share with my family and friends, but it expands so much farther and wider than I can often imagine.

Here is how I have come to know love.

~ Love can expand infinitely when we are in the present moment and shrink drastically when we our thoughts and views are coming from either the past or the future.

~Love is a choice we make.

~Love isn’t something we earn or is something than can be taken away.

~Love is a verb and is a practice.

~Love and fear are the exact opposites.

~Love is defenseless.

~Love is generous.

Love comes from within me. It’s something I connect with. It’s not something I can find in the kindness and thoughtfulness of others or notice the lack of it with hurtful words and actions.

Over the years, I’ve taken a hard look at past relationships. Why are their words and actions still hurting me? Are they still staying those things or am I still saying them to myself? Are they still hurting me or am I revisiting my memories that hurt? Through this insight and willingness to accept me and the people in my life exactly as we are, I’ve come to see love in a much more powerful way. The only thing that gets in the way from me loving them, is some how believing that what they did or said to me meant I wasn’t lovable.

I am love. You are love. It’s not something we need to seek because it lives within us. Think of love as a source of energy. The more we use the energy, the stronger and more expansive it becomes. Our practice, whether it be on Valentine’s day or the other 364 days of the year, is connecting with that source again and again.

My Pact

We had an active weekend in Maine. The boys are starting their football season, Anna is getting ready to begin her first season running cross country and Mark got recruited to run Reach the Beach (a 24 hour 200 mile team run) last minute. We spent a few mornings running, doing some push-ups, squats, forearm planks and taking advantage of some down time to improve our conditioning. Some of this felt a little more challenging than I would have liked and I noticed some old but familiar self-talk. I felt frustrated and unsettled. I was wishing for a different version of my body; something better conditioned, leaner, more fit. This state of mind has crept in frequently, in different places in my life, for as long as I can remember. Struggling through a 3 mile run and remembering the days when 6 miles came so easily and effortlessly. Feeling so excited to get out the next seasons clothes and noticing that the shorts from last summer don’t fit as well as I’d like them to. Or maybe seeing a picture of a woman in a magazine wearing a super cute dress thinking, I wish I could wear that dress and look like that. When I would share my frustration of my body to my husband, he would respond with the same response I would to anyone I love. “I love you just the way you are.” It didn’t matter what he thought or if I heard the same thing from Brad Pitt. What he said, although appreciated, didn’t change the way I thought about myself. The change in my thinking had to come from me.

What made a difference for me was when I created a pact with myself. A pact rooted in gratitude, respect and trust. I didn’t realize I was doing this at the time. But somewhere along the way, I got a glimpse of insight that I am not my body, and the number on a scale or the size of my jeans does not measure my worth. Instead, I could see that my body is the home of my spirit and my uniqueness. I’ve read my share of body image self help books. Some of them would say, if you don’t like your hips, focus on your shoulders, or if you don’t like your nose, focus on your eyes. I understand the advice around emphasizing the positive, however, I think they are missing the point. Our body and even our health is a reflection of how we feel and think about ourselves. Let the focus be on what’s going on inside, not on the outside.

You have an agreement with yourself already in place. Is it based in acceptance or judgment? Is your agreement nurturing or filled with rules, deprivation and punishment? If you can see that the pact you have with yourself is any less than loving, you MUST shift it. We are here in this lifetime to shine bright and share our best version of ourselves. By embracing ourselves, our bodies and our lives just as we are in this moment, we open a space to create something new. If we continue to beat ourselves up at every turn, ironically, the change we are seeking becomes further and further out of reach because we spend all of our time and energy fighting ourselves.

Life will throw us curve balls where we can easily go from feeling on cloud 9 to being filled with doubts and uncertainties. Just like I experienced over the weekend. That’s when the pact comes in. We can say to ourselves “ I love you just the way you are” and really believe it.

Here is my Pact-

I am grateful for my beating heart and my steady breath. I promise to nurture my body with rest, movement and life giving food. I listen, I trust, I connect. I am complete, just as I am, in this moment.

What’s yours?

You Don’t Necessarily Have to Buy a Zoo

How often do we notice that we are afraid to do something and back down? We may be afraid of a conversation with a spouse, parent, or friend because of how we think the conversation will go. We may be afraid to let go of a habit because we think it’s too difficult and we will just end up in failure. We may be afraid to make a major life change, like a career change or a move, because we think being comfortable in the known is better than the uncomfortable in the unknown. My family and I saw “We Bought a Zoo” over the holiday break. In the movie, Matt Damon’s character, Benjamin Mee decides to move his family out of the city into a home with a former zoo attached to it. When Benjamin tries to reconnect with his teenage son, he tells him “You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

I love what Benjamin is offering here. My interpretation of this piece of advice is this “Look- there are things in your life that are going to scare the $hit out of you. But it’s just your ego trying to keep you in a comfortable and safe place. Comfortable and safe will not get you the amazing life you are meant to live. Please ignore your ego for just 20 seconds and welcome in the possibility of something awesome”.

Setting fear aside in our lives is a practice. Start small. Start with a big breath and just go for it- whatever that thing is that scares you the most. When you find out that taking some risks in your life doesn’t turn out with the world crashing down around you (like your ego may lead you to believe), then you will be ready to take on more. You can buy your zoo. Just take a deep breath.

I’d love to hear from you. Let me know how it goes!

Come out, come out, wherever you are!

Hide and Seek is one of my own childhood games that my kids still play. I would love to find the best possible hiding spot and stay there as quietly as I could. I’ve been noticing that I still play Hide and Seek. But for me, it’s less like a childhood game and more like a safe routine that I’ve chosen for myself. I didn’t realize I was even playing. This blog site showed me where I’ve been hiding. I’ve been hiding behind my busy schedule, telling myself that I don’t have time to write and post on this blog. Sneaky, isn’t it? Hiding is just an outlet of fear. It makes sense. We protect ourselves when we are scared. Hiding is a way to protect our selves. But whom are we hiding from? What are we protecting ourselves from? Who is the monster that we created in our mind?

I created a monster in my mind and that monster is my fear of what people may think of me. I can see this monster as something that is not truly a part of me. It’s just something my ego created to protect itself. With this awareness, I can choose to stop hiding. I can stand up and get out of my hiding spot.

Boy, I still love a game of Hide and Seek. But now, I see that the real fun is playing the role of the seeker. The seeker of my truth.