I Love Me, And I Feel It.
Ok, I don't always feel it. Do you?
Time to pull out an oldie, but goodie. Today's "holiday" can put tummies in a twist, and bring up irritation. It can also calm and nourish us, if we let it, even if we don't have a loving to buy us roses or give us a back rub. Easier said than done? I hear you!
I Loved Me for the First Time
When I was studying to be an Ayurvedic Health Counselor at the Kripalu School of Ayurveda in 2014, I had a very strange and memorable experience. We were in a Thai Massage Self-Care workshop with a former student who I adored. Motown was bringing grins and lyrics to lips and voices around me. I felt my anger rising. When I am angry I usually know why, or at least I thought I did. The heat kept building within me and I wanted to leave the room. I couldn't justify it, so I stayed. By the time we were near the end of class and lying on our backs resting in shavasana, hands on chest, I was sobbing as silently as I could.
Between gasps of breath I heard,
"I love you, I love you, I love you,"
in my mind. I knew I was speaking to myself words I never had before and meant them. The tears flooded again and another student came to comfort me. I suddenly had the urge to write. A poem on a wing and if I didn't catch it, it'd be gone. I sat up in my bunk late and the following spilled from heart to keys. I reread it to remind myself of the possibility. Perhaps I was angry, because I wasn't loving me. I still get angry. And sometimes it is because I know it's up to me to show me love, to receive love, to believe love. That's my job alone.
Others could love me in all the perfect ways, but if I don't believe it, if I don't agree that I am undeniably lovable, and love myself, it will never sustain beyond the moment of expression. I hope my story taps your own desire to love you today.
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I LOVE ME
It may have been the first time.
Getting beyond the shock of that, I can believe …
I told myself tonight, "I love me."
I want “I Love You”
Tattooed on my wrist.
Left arm so I can
See it
Forearm so I can’t
Hide it, even from myself
Three times I heard a voice in my head, so deliberately
“I love you, I love you, I love you”
I realized it was me.
It wasn’t a desire or the imagination of someone else’s voice
Or even me forcing those words toward myself like leftovers I must eat
For fear of being guilty otherwise—
The only way I think I have said it before—
It was me
Not even God telling me
But, that great being who spread light to create me
Has allowed me the gift of hearing myself
Telling me
I love
Me
This is my mountain top. I am my mountain top
What will this new world be like now that I love myself?
What can I see from up here? What will I hear?
Who can hear me? I don’t care
Helllloooooooo---aaaauuuuummmm
I can hear me
A full, alto radiant vibration
I can do anything
And not to spite or to prove
Or for money
Or because I have to
I want “I love you” tattooed on my arm where I can see it
On my forearm so I can’t hide
I want to read it and reread it
More times than I take my pulse for Ayurveda
Twice daily
I want to read it and believe it like the first time
This first time
I want to read it
And believe it
And not need ANYONE else to say it.
These are my words
These three words I spoke to 2 parents, one brother, 4 boyfriends, one husband and countless friends and mentors
Tonight, tomorrow, forever
Their mine
My voice doesn’t need or like to be stretched outward only.