There are so many reasons, especially from our earliest days, why we are unable to fully love ourselves. We enter this world completely vulnerable and helpless, and also so psychically awake. Without boundaries, we take on guilt and shame for things happening in our environment, and from this we subconsciously form our self-image. We create a hard shell for survival. If we continue to hide in it later in life, it is ultimately self-defeating. We are blocked from a mysterious, full life of intimacy and sensation. How do we juggle receptivity and assertiveness, connection and isolation, familiar and unknown?
Asking for support not only takes courage, it requires emotional honesty. Furthermore, managing your own impulses and responding to others’ emotional needs is a complex task. “We all have empathy, but we often don’t have enough courage to display it,” (Maya Angelou) for it is not only difficult to show up for someone who is struggling, but because it opens us up to our own pain. Yet, we do not need to relate to be able to support one another. I wish that we are kind to each other, and that we witness ourselves in new ways, for we are all still learning how to be humans on this Earth.
How can I be kind to myself today?
Emotional maturity asks I find balance
Between my petulant inner child and stern adult.
Vulnerability and Strength are not strangers,
Nor opposites, but equals.
When wounds open, red heart-juice gushes in
To say, “I matter. I am supported.”
Those scabs you continue to pick
Keep your world small.
When you love yourself,
Your world continues to expand.
The “outside” may be demanding a lot,
But it is only a test of how much I love myself.
You can’t keep neglecting yourself.
Life is always expecting more of us,
May you not be intimidated to give more.
You have been giving and giving,
Heart so big and it is time
To turn it back to your own precious self.
This selfishness is not about pleasure or greed,
But about loving up on yourself again and again,
For the sake of no one else.
Receive more than you need without throttling it.
Let it lead toward your highest good,
For you are worthy of abundance.
You are Abundance.
Spirit does not judge you for living in your light.
Katrina Freitag 