It’s no secret that I love you.

I don’t have to like you to love you. Love is acceptance. To love you is to accept you just the way you are without trying to change you. To love myself is to accept myself just the way I am. NOW.

I struggle some days, often during the nighttime hours, when all I really long to do is sleep; a dreamless, peaceful sleep in love. What I struggle with are thoughts. Perplexing thoughts, worrisome thoughts at times, thoughts of what others are thinking and feeling. A Course in Miracles describes these thoughts as attack thoughts. Attacking what I am in my heart; peace, joy and love. Some mornings I struggle to get out of bed the thoughts have become so real. Negative thoughts, harbouring resentment and self righteousness, whilst other thoughts are expectations I have placed upon myself. Thoughts. The mind. Busy busy busy! The mind loves to keep busy and strategize, building walls, moving fences, always thinking. The mind likes to keep me in the past, where I can never grow, stuck on the wheel of what could of been, regret and resentment. When I live in the past in my mind, I continue to repeat the mistakes of the past. The mind also likes to project into the future, bringing anxiety and robbing me of  joy — what we think, we become! Worrying is like praying really hard for what you do not want!

My heart knows love, as this is what it is made of, and wants to share it. My heart longs to tell you, I love you, to share with you the mystery of loving. My heart holds happiness eternally in the hope that my mind will join in the party. My heart knows that happiness is my birthright. Happiness is joy. Joy is love. All these feel good “feelings” are the real thing! What is not real are the thoughts that come in and try to block my happiness. The only way to silence the mind is through stillness. Practicing stillness through nature, yoga, meditation and prayer are the keys to joy for me. Walking with Mother Earth, caressing her curves with my feet is my favourite path to stillness. Practicing breath work, turning my focus to my breath keeps me in the NOW, the present moment. The present moment NOW, is all I really have. There is no yesterday. There is no tomorrow. There is only NOW. The secret to joy is NOW.

I am learning to love the way my mind keeps searching for something, some little tidbit it can make a meal of. Something to crucify myself with. I am loving myself clean. Clean of self betrayal, self sabotage, selflessness. Washing myself clean of the victim mentality I have learned since experiencing trauma as a small child. When, as a child, my power was taken away from me, I learned to survive and live without my power. I learned to be a people pleaser, acquiescing to the will of others to survive. 

This behaviour as an adult, no longer serves me. I am loving myself clean of harbouring resentment against those who have hurt or spitefully used me for their own gain, knowingly or not. When I grew up being a people pleaser and putting others on a pedestal before my holy self, I became a target. A target for opportunists; energy seekers, wolves in sheep’s clothing, only too happy to share in the bounty of traumatized me, oblivious to her gifts and talents and triggered to paralysis, unable to say NO because she had not healed sufficiently to stand in her power! “You hold within you all that you require to attain all that you desire” – Buddha. Everything I need is within myself. I have to silence my mind to hear my heart and trust myself to love beyond my fear.

However, to grow out of the victim mentality, it is a part of the mind, the psyche, I had to change my perspective. These people, interestingly more women than men, forced me to change. They forced me to grow in order to survive and thrive and stand in my power. To own the gloriousness of me! People pleasing is a learned behaviour, it is not who I truly am. All of my perceived frailties and weaknesses; my idiosyncrasies and oddities are my gifts. When I hide my gifts and shrink from my power and authority, I am robbing the world of my unique light. Jesus of Nazareth, the greatest teacher of love in my green eyes, said “Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house”. I am learning how to shine through my fear of being seen. To risk it all in the name of love — self love.

It is very brave to love when one has been hurt. It is very brave to keep loving despite the fear of being hurt again. Love takes courage. Courage means to speak your truth from a place of love. Courage to go against what is perceived as normal or mainstream if it does not make me feel good inside. Courage to take a stand for my truth, even when it may mean to stand alone. Courage to ask questions. Courage to say NO! Courage to say YES! Courage not to be liked if compromising my integrity is at risk.

No one can do me better than me. No one is me. I am a teacher, my own teacher and healer to self love. No one can tell you how to love yourself, you must open your heart, and most often this comes with incredible pain and surrender. Surrendering to the pain brings the love. Fighting the pain brings more pain. I choose sweet sweet surrender over and over again! To love myself despite the roiling thoughts that plague me. NOW, I am watching them, these crazy thoughts. All of the thoughts and behaviours I have are learned. Learned from a lifetime of shame and lack of self esteem. Essentially fear – fear is anything that does not come from a place of love.

The only one that can change me is me. I am relearning that I am perfect just the way I am, with the wisdom of the ages inside my very bones. My life experiences have moulded me into who I think I am not who I truly am; the possessor of innate talents and gifts I was oblivious to until I stripped naked, burning the cloak of shame and blame I was drowning in and stood tall, proud and free! The real ME!! Still burning I stand, the flame inside my heart growing and glowing until it ignites another beautiful soul with whom my story inspires and passes it on to the next. Loving myself clean is spreading like wildfire. Soon this beautiful blessed Earth shall be clean, clean, clean and we shall all be bathing in the waters of truth. Speaking, living, sharing our truth through silencing and surrendering our mind to join in love with our beautiful heart. Share the secret of self love; love yourself, trust yourself, accept yourself clean in love. ❤