self love

All is said… and done

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All is said

When all is said and done
I am only flying home.

Like the young curlew flying
Not knowing, north
Assured only by collective memories
Of a past not lived,
Universal in nature, instinctive.

Carried on the wings of others
Gone before, in trust
Of the flock marshalling its strength
Never ceasing its formation,
Forever holding, eternal love.

When all is said and done
Love, me myself and I.

– FlorenceT

© 2015 Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

Priority… me.

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It’s a life journey, isn’t it :-)? To learn to manage our priorities. In fact, to learn to determine what our priorities are.

Is the spotless living room necessary? Yes, it is a preference, but necessary? At which point of ‘dirtiness’ does cleaning a living room become a priority and go on the list of priorities?

Context changes and something like cleaning becomes a priority or in fact, top priority?! (You can tell I don’t fancy cleaning.) A metaphor for life really. Truly, I am a master of prioritising; when things become ‘sufficiently important’ to become a priority, they will and they move along the list.

I know many who clean, who love cleaning and would prioritise this over say, reading a book. I know women whose identity is validated by the cleanliness of their homes. At times, I envy them their discipline and focus.

I know others who want things ‘perfect’ – the perfect Christmas party based on an image in their mind or preconditioned expectations. How about the perfect family gathering where ‘everyone loves everyone’, no tear visible in the family fabric?

Is this our obsession with perfection? Is this our need for conformity and thus perceived acceptance and belonging? By whom and to what?

So it was that I remained in bed on a Sunday mid-afternoon because my daughter, who has according to herself perfected the art of being a lump, insisted that I should. A family joke, and by definition, a lump is one who is having a lazy day being in bed in her pyjamas and doing nothing serious. (I bet she’ll amend this definition if she gets the opportunity! 🙂 ). Her final words before she left my bedroom were, ‘stop doing stuff’. That’s a red flag – stopped me it did and you are witnessing the onslaught of ‘reflection’.

Whatever my values are about ‘doing’ and ‘effort’, at some point I stopped prioritising ‘me’ in my life. The ‘me’ who loves to read, the ‘me’ who enjoys listening music (and the exploring and downloading associated with it), the ‘me’ who feels a little empty not writing, the ‘me’ who wants to curl up cosy in bed just because.

Context changed, and I was feeling depleted. So time out.

And what have I learnt from this young lady who approaches life with a certain joie de vivre and a whole lot of confidence? Remember to prioritise ‘me’. She does and without apology. Maybe I did ‘do’ something right, 🙂 ?

Which reminds me, how are you travelling?

My willingness to be intimate with my own deep feelings creates the space for intimacy with another.     Shakti Gawain

~ FlorenceT

 

© 2016 FlorenceT Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

The door will open…

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When one door closes, another opens
 Or another five or ten open
but only when that one door closes.

Sometimes we don’t know what that one door is.

Sometimes we do know but do nothing about it. We do nothing about it because we need the promise of another door opening first.

Sometimes we see so many things in the way of closing that door, it is easier not to. Sometimes we are too tired to even try.

But this I know:

If you close that door with love and a positive attitude, you won’t need proof of the doors opening and those obstacles
well, they are just dust under your feet as you head out and quietly close that door behind you.

Love your self enough to no longer be bound by the expectations of others, to reject the hurtful moments when you had to deny yourself, to have to resign yourself to the ‘inevitable’; love your self enough to know you are worthy of all that your soul desires.

And the positive attitude…?

  • Be open to possibilities
 those that even you, intelligent as you are, have never contemplated or would have even considered.
  • Be curious, say ‘yes’ to opportunities, to those things you’ve always wanted to but didn’t think you could.
  • Do these things for the love of them with joy of presence.
  • Be accepting of the not-known. The doors that are opening will appear when the moment is right, when you have said ‘yes’ enough times to what you love.

~ FlorenceT

© 2016 FlorenceT Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

Roll up your sleeves

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This singer-songwriter from Melbourne wrote a letter to herself.  I have included the lyrics – its interpretation is up to you. 🙂 Though Susan Sontag said,

Abstract loveReal art has the capacity to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, comformable.       ~ Susan Sontag

Tame? We don’t want tame, do we? So perhaps we ought to dispense with the interpretation, and just go with feeling. Let the emotion takes you where it will… and therein is the message.

Sadness, resignation, resilience, self-soothing, … words that spring to my mind … what about yours?

For those who can’t view the video, here’s the Soundcloud track.

Roll up your sleeves
And face the face it’s looking right back at me
It’s easier to leave it oh
It’s easier to fake it, oh oh
So I’ll go and I’ll join the free
There’s people there, they’re just like me oh
Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright

So I’ll go and I’ll change my name
But they’re chasing them just like me

Everything is gonna be alright
Everything is gonna be alright
Roll up your sleeves
And roll up your sleeves
…
Background image: Celebration by Cianelli
– FlorenceT
 © 2016 FlorenceT Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

As a new year begins…

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This poem, by WB Yeats published in 1899, expresses a desire to demonstrate our love with material things, when all we could proffer to ones we love is our dreams. It speaks of love’s vulnerability.

How often unconsicously we trampled on dreams – when we smile vacantly at a young girl’s declaration that she wants to be a world renowned footballer, or when we smirk at another’s wish to be a successful author, or when we scoff at one’s passion to travel and learn from the world… so many ‘unbelievable’ dreams but only to us. These dreams are laid out for us because we love and are loved. And what about when we doubt our own desire, our own passion? Yes, we also have a love relationship with our selves.

So as we enter the new year, an exhortation for us to tread softly.

 

Night-Sky

May loving kindness light your way…

I wish you abundance in 2016!

– FlorenceT

 

© 2016 FlorenceT Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

Love in practice

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Love is undefinable. There may be words, strings of words for the wordsmiths among us, shapes and colours for the artists, to describe the expression or impression of love, yet its essence is mysterious and perhaps subjective.

One of my favourite quotes of all time, which I have shared here before:

“We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.” ~Anais Nin

And so it is with love. How do we experience love so that we will recognize it as love, and not something else? For example, when a close one gives you solutions, do you experience it as love, care
 or a slight? You know how it is
 the ‘don’t you know I can solve my own problems?’ stance. Or when a dear one attempts to lighten the mood with humor, is he or she met with understanding and gratitude, or with annoyance for being belittled?

I know perhaps you may say, he or she doesn’t get me
 doesn’t appreciate what I am going through. Perhaps they don’t. When does the judgment of fault or wrong ever improve a situation?

“You don’t need to justify your love, you don’t need to explain your love, you just need to practice your love. Practice creates the master.” ~Miguel Ruiz

So what I am about to say is probably my ’translation’ of love in practice. Do you agree?

  • Love involves an openness to the possibility that the other is trying;
  • Love involves a desire to impute positive intentions by your loved one;
  • Love involves the acknowledgement that perhaps the other may have good intentions (even if he or she lacks the capacity to care and love you as you wish to experience it);
  • Love involves a kindness in spirit to the other;
  • Love involves a willingness to withhold judgment and seek clarification;
  • Love involves seeing the worthiness in another;
  • Love involves accepting when you are not met, in spirit or soul, by the other without blame;
  • Love involves communication in silence, of looks and gestures without words;
  • Love involves sense of safety, of being emotionally and psychically held;
  • Love involves loving yourself enough to be capable of doing all that is before.

Herein lies the crux, the most difficult exercise of all in my view. (By the way, self-love is not synonymous with narcissism.)

Our capacity to love is infinite, and if we allow ourselves to draw from this abundant well then we can love many without taking away from another. And in here too, the love we experience adds to our loving yet it is not overflowing because there is no limit to the love we can receive.

(Without putting a damper on a post about love, when one is love then nothing negative, reducing or hateful can penetrate, yes?)

“We accept the love we think we deserve.” ~Stephen Chbosky

Be wonderful, be love.
– FlorenceT

 

© 2015 FlorenceT Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

The Journey to arrive

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For each ending, a beginnning.  For each leaving, an arrival.

This is an amazing poem by David Whyte titled ‘The Journey’ – do listen to the audio track of his reading.

 

Journey David Whyte

 

Listen also to ‘Everything is Waiting for You’, ‘All the True Vows’ and especially for you, ‘True Love’.

I hope the beauty of David Whyte’s poems (with Jeff Rona’s music) lifts you and inspires you!

– FlorenceT

© 2015 Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.

Feeding is not nourishing…

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Busy-ness and stress are no strangers in my life. I am adept at managing it all. To replenish my energy, I meditated, slept the requisite 6 hours, ate nutritious food, made lists and check them off – everything to ensure daily life ticks over as it should. Well, I probably could have gotten more than 6 hours sleep if I ‘gave up’ writing but life would be unbearable :-).

Then a friend reminded me to nourish myself. It was then I realised in the midst of ‘doing’ living, I’d somehow forgotten to care for myself. You see, to look after myself as in to nourish myself takes more than eating the right foods and sleeping the recommended number of hours. I know this.

In essence, nourishing is more than meeting biological or physiological needs. Nourishing is about feeding the spirit and soul. By the way, nourish comes from the Latin word ‘nutrire’ meaning “feed” or “cherish”. It is defined as “provide with the food or other substances necessary for growth, health, and good condition”. Feeding myself is indeed practical, I dare not dismiss this need. Yet when I use the word ‘cherish’ then the tonality changes. To cherish
 for growth, health and good condition
 that speaks of something different, don’t you think?

Something like… floating on a cloud, blissful in the flow of life, feeling every sensation. Energised to meet the new day and looking on with a happy disposition at the possibilities, both positive and negative. Mhmm


So have I cherished myself? Maybe a tiny bit, but not enough. I had dispensed my energy to the extent that I had little reserves left. I have not read much when reading have always fed my soul. I abandoned my walks in nature – to be in nature and in particular, to observe the flora and fauna gladden my heart, lift my spirit. I even stopped eating chocolate – yes, sacrilege indeed 🙂 Particularly, I cannot remember the last time I sat before the piano, indulging in a tune here and there. So many nourishing rituals I’d somehow ‘forgotten’.

So I figured, enough already! I may have been meditating for relaxation but it seems I have to be mindful of not getting caught in the daily grind and to nourish myself as well
 one day at a time.

Have you been here, in this space? Busy and believing you are taking care of yourself, when you really are not? When all you do for self is ‘survival’, not nourishment?

Why not write down a list of things which you do for yourself, those gems which nourish your soul, which lift your spirit?

And if you don’t have a list, well begin one now :-). What makes your heart sing? What makes you feel sensual? What inspires you? What gives you a spring in your step even just thinking of it? What makes you feel sated?

When you and I wake each morning, we will look at that list of gems, pick one for the day. We will treat ourselves every day.

Will you join me?

 

nourishing soul

Stay wonderful. You are.

– FlorenceT

 

© 2015 Copyright reserved. The author asserts her moral and legal rights over this work.