sweet words like petals
drifting in the spring breezes
truth solid as granite

i will speak my truth
without hesistation.
maybe you will like it.
maybe you will hate it.
if i let that shape me
i am not me, and this
would not be
my truth.

look me in the eye
when i talk to you!
listen when i describe
the you i see.
hear the love in my voice
from the other side
of the mirror.

take the time to pause
before you open your mouth
to say something you
only mean in the moment.

In order to be who you are, you must be willing to let go of who you think you are.

Michael Singer

 
Today I spent 10 minutes in a meditation where I focused on my breathing. I used a free app, Insight Timer, which I highly recommend. With your permission, it turns off the notifications on your phone while you are using it which helps to avoid distractions.

After that, I practiced a focused meditation upon the above quote. I love short quotes like this because there are so many ways you can take something like this. After some contemplation, I decided that for me, in this moment, it means that you must let go of your own pre-conceived notions of self, those established in your childhood, youth, teens, 20s, and however far past that you have gotten. It means disregarding the labels, good and bad. In letting go of the labels, yours for yourself and others for you, you will be able to find your own self of the moment.

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.

Gustave Flaubert

Have you found this to be true? If you are one who struggles for words, you may not believe this, but I agree with Gustave. I find that as I write, I discover clarity in my own thoughts, my own beliefs, my own sticking points. I find enlightenment when I write for no one because I do not censor myself. No matter how ‘silly’, ‘ridiculous’, or socially unacceptable it may seem at first.

The key is reflection. You must follow the thought, chase it across the paper, or the screen, until it slows enough for you to embrace it, understand it, acknowledge it, accept it. We often try to edit as we write, but this utterly defeats the process of discovery.

The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

With each day, with each moment, we are experiencing firsts. I learn something every day. It’s not always something big that I learn. Today I learned that the trees across the street bloom in pink and fuchsia. This may not seem like something earth-shattering, but it is something I did not know yesterday, and it is a beautiful thing to know in my opinion.

We accept the love we think we deserve.

Stephen Chbosky

 
Have you ever heard the phrase, ‘when people tell you who they are, believe them?” It took me a very long time to really grasp that concept.

I heard another great new phrase the other day too. It went, “you have to hate yourself in order to hate others.” It just struck me when I heard it. We have all heard the inverse, but this look was so new that it startled.

When I combine these in my head, I get to Chbosky’s quote. When we accept love, and yes, we really do need to accept love, we accept the love from another that we feel for ourselves. If someone loves you more than you love yourself, you end up feeling like you don’t deserve them. If they love you less than you love yourself, you feel that they don’t deserve you.

All of this leaves me wondering; do relationships end because as we grow and mature the love we have for ourselves grows and matures as well, but our exterior love relationship doesn’t change?

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss

Some truths we know but struggle against. The good Doctor was right. We need to smile because that wonderful thing happened at all, but instead, most of us, end up crying because it’s over. We do our best to keep it alive even as we watch it fade. We are so attached to that wonderful feeling that we just can’t bear to let it go, not even if something even better is on the horizon.

I am working now on appreciating, valuing, and loving, while not being attached to any particular outcome. In order to do this, I am using mindful meditation several times a day, as needed. I am starting to find some peace.