Danielle Laporte looked me straight in the eye today and said ‘what if you considered, right now, not wanting to change who you are and how you are.  No striving to change.’

 

What if you said to yourself, “I am not broken, I am not flawed, I don’t need to be fixed.  I need to be celebrated, honoured.  I deserve to be loved. And that has to start with me.”

 

Oh how liberating!   How liberating to feel that you don’t have to constantly be working hard to achieve in life and career and even letting go of trying to be a better person.  And just celebrate where and who you are right now.

 

She said that when she let go of being the natural over achiever in her career and trying to win the ‘spiritual brownie points’ (being good enough, enlightened enough, cleansed enough etc), she became a more friendly person, especially to herself.

 

Maybe I need to give it a go?  I have been trying to let go of the past and the pain… but each time I do, it just comes back to bite me … and perhaps that is why I have slowly become numb.

 

So how about I just let my sh*t go?  Let my ambition and drive go.  Let my thirst for the answers and knowledge and live with who I am now, not the person I want to be or wish I were.

 

While I have been zoning out recently, doing my ‘homework’ on self compassion and practicing friendliness towards myself, I consistently get a very clear image in my head.  It is me.  Tiny.  Curled up in the foetal position.  This version of me, is inside me.  I am not sure if I / she is inside my head or in my gut…  but she is tiny and small, so tiny, so fragile.

 

And it dawned on me today as I was listening to Danielle, that the reason why the grief for my Mumbo has returned and is being mixed in with the sorrow I feel for myself right now, is that she would have been the one person who would have climbed into that position with me and curled herself around me and said, ‘of course you are in pain, of course you are still hurt, of course…’ rather than the harsh words I keep saying to myself ‘you should be over this by now.’

 

I know she would do that for me, to me, as it is exactly what I do when Tom hurts himself, or Willy is upset.  I curl my long body around their vulnerable frames and stroke Willy’s hair or Tom’s back, sooth them with my words or gentle questions.  Hold them tight until they are ready to face the world again.

 

I know I have to do that for myself.  I have to step in to her shoes and do it for me, do it for her.  There is no one else.

 

Danielle says this is when the medicine begins to work.  When you feel at your worst, you think you are your biggest loser, but you still love yourself regardless.  The preaching and motivating stops and you appreciate where you are at.

 

God, I hope it works.  I should be over this by now. (!)