Can you tell yourself three things today, while standing in front of a mirror and probably feeling silly about it? Can you commit to affirming yourself every day with your own voice, and praising all the iterations of who you are, have been, and will be?
Just three things each day. Easy peasy.
Tell yourself one thing you love about who you were in the past. Childhood to menopause, doesn’t matter – just one good and true thing about the past version of you.
Tell yourself one thing you love about yourself right NOW. Remind yourself that the current iteration of YOU deserves to be reminded she is strong and capable. (It’s kind of a f*cked up time to be alive, but you are killing it, sister!)
Tell yourself one thing you will love about yourself in the future. What attributes do you strive for? Who is the person you want to be in a more evolved state? Be positive and believe it’s true!
I’ll go first:
I love that when I was a child, I was scrappy, and able to carry burdens to heavy for me. I am proud to have overcome the trauma. Wow – that little girl was STRONG!
I love that right now, I am the most spiritually free I’ve been in my life. God reveals himself in nature and in music, in friendships, and in the least of these. It is for freedom we have been set free, and it took me all these years to understand what that meant. Freedom is everything.
I love that in the future, I will be able to use my gifts to help others. I will practice a peace that passes understanding, and my countenance will be calm. I will forgive myself more readily, judge myself and others less harshly, and stand up for myself when I need to.
I challenge you to drag your ass to a mirror every day, look into your own eyes, and come up with three things each day.
(And don’t worry about running out of nice things to say – you’re very lovable and brave and strong. Always have been. Always will be!)
Peace be with you, Readers.
PS: Feel free to share your three things in the comments! We are all in this together.
I speak up for myself now. Well, sometimes. As long as it doesn’t rock the boat TOO much. As long as the person I have conflict with won’t stop loving me because I’m mad. Only when I’ve rolled the issue OVER and OVER I’m my brain ad nauseam and have decided I’m with a safe person. Only after I’ve played out the worst case scenario in my head, mini-grieved the possible outcomes. And after I speak my peace (because I’ve learned my peace has value, too,) I will fret and worry that I’ve upset someone. Doesn’t matter if it concerns life events or little frustrations, I speak. Even if it’s a whisper, I speak. Even though I know assertion-guilt will try to make me feel like a bad human. I’m starting – with fits and stops – to say when I’ve been hurt or bothered, even though I’ve been a people pleaser all my life. So… No, You cannot talk to me like that. Little Me had no say, but I’m re-parenting her, you see. I’m teaching her things I should have taught my daughters, and must have somehow over the years. They speak up for themselves, without fear of abandonment, because they know they’re safe. And Little Me is safe now too, finding her voice and using it.
I dream about babies a lot. At least a few times a week, there is a baby storyline in my slumber. I have two daughters by birth, who are now 29 and 32. I am not a spring chicken.
But in my dreams, I am a young mother. In keeping with the surreal element, the child is sort of an amalgam – a blend of both my daughters, but neither in particular.
My therapist and I suspect the baby – always a girl – is also representative of myself, and of my children. Whatever bizarre elements of dream-realm events that happen in my sleep, the theme is always the same: I MUST take care of this baby at all costs. I must save her from whatever crazy dream plot may come. Lots of silly storylines surface, but lots of dark ones too. Maybe I am keeping her safe from Keystone Cop capers. Maybe I am smuggling her out of a concentration camp.
Like I said, sometimes it’s heavy. Sometimes it’s scary. But that baby always makes it out okay.
So, I dreamt last night that this baby was a newborn, so fresh that her umbilicus was still attached. It was cold outside, and we were sitting on a park bench somewhere, and she was wet and crying. I lay her down and undress her to change her diaper, and she is doing that newborn thing where they fling their arms out wide in a startle.
She is afraid she is falling, and I am fastening her diaper with one hand, while trying to grasp her two tiny hands to her chest with my other, all the while cooing, “Shhhh, you’re not falling. I got you. You’re okay, little one! I love you!”
Pediatricians will tell you that this movement – called the Moro reflex – is just that…a reflex. As a matter of fact, it is used to determine that the baby is healthy and normal. If they do not startle, there might be a problem neurologically. Even baby primates do it.
But when my babies did it, it threw my instincts into overdrive. They were so sure (with their six days of lived experience,) that they were falling. We might as well have been a mother and baby chimp, so primal was the urge to make that baby feel safe. A baby in a startle reflex is a pitiful thing, as their little faces contort into something akin to panic.
But I could fix it, you see. Soothing words, a tight swaddle, offering the comfort of the breast – all things that I could do to make them feel safe. Honestly, it was the only time in my mothering life I felt like I knew what I was doing, and I haven’t felt that way since, and like I said – I’m no spring chicken.
This is the fourth dream I’ve had in a week’s time about the baby’s pitifully startling. And I’m sure that this particular incarnation of the baby is me. Because I have felt like I am falling for eight days now, since the election. I know many, many people who feel like they are living in a constant Moro reflex, feeling like we are falling. Except no one can assure us that no, we are actually safe. So we panic and flail.
And truthfully, it’s not just the political state of the country. I have felt flail-y for months, since The Diagnosis in June. I haven’t had time to recover from one startle before the next flail-worthy event. Family drama. Occasions for grieving. Never-ending health woes. Elections.
We need someone to grab our hands and hold them to our chests, so that we can know that – yes, it seems like the end of the world, but can you feel that beating? That’s your heart, and it’s still going, rhythmically and with regularity. We need someone to shush us gently so that we can hear our own breath, and know that we are still nourished by air, even as we feel as if we are falling.
So, this morning when I woke with the dream so fresh in my mind, I lay still for a good while. I could still feel the grasp of the tiny hands, so I asked myself what I could do to feel safe. I told myself soothing words. Words like…
You’re not falling, it only feels like it.
God’s got you.
I wrapped the blankets around me tight in cocoon of swaddled security. Feel the mattress beneath you, I told myself. I am on solid ground. I am warm and safe in this moment. I brought my own hands to my chest, where life keeps beating, in spite of the panic.
We must keep our littlest selves from falling. We must comfort her as if she is ours by birth, because she is, you see. We are birthing the best versions of ourselves, even as we startle. We know how to do this. We know how to nurture the whole wide world; it’s just our turn to be nurtured. We know what we’re doing, we’ve just been taught not to trust it.
May you feel grounded and comforted today, even if it’s by self-soothing. May your panic be calmed, and the things that bring your mind terror be tamed. Your fear of falling is an inborn instinct, but so is your ability to find comfort. No matter what storyline is thrown at you.
I don’t know who needs to hear this, but please don’t pick up a drink because of all this. Statistics show that the need for liver transplants has risen by 300% since the beginning of Covid – as the stress of the pandemic has pushed so many into alcoholism. This gestures wildly is every bit as terrifying; don’t allow it to push you. I know you are hurting, freaked out, panicked. For an alcoholic, that’s very scary territory. Our own minds tell us unwinding with a drink will chill us out. We fight the urges to drink, yes. But we are also fighting our own brains. Our own bodies. Our disease. I know it’s easy to say … who cares anyway, as mad as the world has gone!? ME. I CARE. So many people care, sweet friend. You are loved, and we need to be of soundest mind to figure out where we can serve next, how we can be the antidote to the hate. Hating is easy, and any old addiction will fall right in line. But loving is hard. Fighting is hard. And requires soberness of mind, and fire of belly. Listen, Beloveds: There is absolutely nothing that using won’t make worse, I promise. Nothing. And the good people of America need you – your love, your example, your strength for whatever crazy is ahead. Use your tools. Call your people. Plunk your ass in a seat at a meeting. Lean into your spirituality. Ask God for help. Practice self care. Just don’t pick up a drink. Please. You’ve worked so hard. I SEE YOU. Stay strong.
I had plans to go to the pool at the YWCA today, but about half an hour ago, spiked a sudden fever. So my plans went from swimming to resting. Resting, in case you don’t know, is a very recurrent activity if you are fighting Ehlers Danlos Syndrome OR cancer. With those two conditions onboard, I have to rest so much.
For a couple of years now, I will spike these fevers with no infection, no apparent cause. They’re awful, rising within minutes. We called them my “mystery fevers.”
So finding out six weeks ago that it’s caused by leukemia, it all made sense. Fevers and night sweats mean my body is fighting ever harder. It’s good to know what was causing these, as well as the frequent infections and extreme fatigue. If I pop one fever, I usually pop a few more during the course of the day. BLARGH.
And it’s disheartening that there is no cure for my type of cancer, not even chemo will cure it for good (it can however slow it down some, when it comes time for treatment – and it will.) Might be in 2 years, could be in 15-20. “Twenty years!” you might be thinking, “That’s great!”
Is it, though? If I have to battle fevers, and night sweats, and crippling fatigue for the next 20 years? I am struggling right now. Becaus actually, they both suck. I am admittedly not Miss Merry Sunshine about my chronic illnesses on hard days. It’s the most frustrating thing in the world when you just want to feel decent and enjoy a long, happy life, but a host of chronic conditions put the kibbutz on so many things.
Maybe this explains why on “good days,” when I can do things with my friends and family, or participate in any activities, I am ECSTATIC.
I appreciate good days so much, I take as many pictures as I can on good days, even of little things. Because on days like today, I go back and enjoy those pics, and the memories attached to them, and look forward to having more.
It reminds me that more good days WILL happen. Because there must always be hope. Hope I desperately need.
Being diagnosed with leukemia on top of managing a half dozen chronic medical conditions has made some folks state with a vague indignation:
“That’s not fair.”
And in response, I can only say “no shit.”
Bless them for recognizing it’s too much. Because it IS too much. But the truth – whether you are a believer in Jesus or not – is “too much” is a normal unit of measurement for the bullshittery we must endure in this life.
“It’s not fair” always takes me by surprise. It’s like, Huh. Whats that like…thinking fairness was a viable option in the first place?
I think of things should be fair, of course, and I will try to advocate against the mistreatment of others. But sometimes “others” are not the problem…standard issuehumanity is. Our bodies get busted, our minds get screwy, our spirits falter.
Where one person fights health woes, another might struggle to put food on the table. When one is brokenhearted, another worries about her children constantly. Job troubles, anxiety problems, the list is endless.
If you’re really lucky, you won’t have to contend with all the above simultaneously, but perhaps you have. Or are. I have been all at once before, and I guess it lent me an anxiety-laced sense of a transcendent acceptance (whatever that is. I’ll have to ask my therapist.) Anxious some times, yes – but accepting.
I’m not angry with God, not anymore. , I’ve survived a bunch of really agonizing things, and somehow managed not to pick up a drink in 23 years. And that’s astounding. I never expected sobriety to “stick” for me, and I’m befuddled that it has to this day.
I pretended I had strength, until I did. God and I came to spiritual fisticuffs, and he won when I surrendered. White light meets white flag. Something shifted.
It was confirmed to me during the hard years what I’d known all along – life is not fair, but it’s really good. Even with cancer and alcoholism. There so many beautiful things in this world to appreciate, and beautiful people.
Yes, it’s “too much” sometimes – walking around in achy flesh, on a gravity-bound planet that doesn’t seem to get your vibe. But keep vibing, and so will I.
Occasional freak-outs will 100% happen again; I’m starting to think they have just as much right to be part of our vibe as does our holiest, Jesus-trustin’ selves. You know, for the sake of fairness.
How often do I feel like I’m spiritually “getting things right”? About as often as we see an eclipse. So let’s not lean on on our “understanding” of God and lean instead into Love (which is really just another name God goes by.) And yes, this is my lame attempt at photographing the eclipse.
By: JANA GREENE
If it’s God’s will, it will come easily. That’s how you know you’re operating in the Spirit. Things will click. Things will flow. His yoke is light, etc and so on.
But also, if you are in God’s will, it will be hard.
You’ll know you have holy favor when you’re downtrodden and at the end of your rope. That’s the ol’ devil, don’t you know. And he wouldn’t mess with you if you weren’t doing God’s work.
Well, which is it? Do you see the conundrum?
This is life, and it’s both and neither. It is, so far as I can tell, it’s ALLTHETHINGS, dammit.
I can’t trust a God whose mind I have to pick apart to get it “right.”
I don’t tell my adult children, “Okay, I’m feeling some type of way about you…but WHICH way? Let’s see if you can correctly guess based on interpretation of an ancient text and my jealous, vengeful nature. May the odds be ever in your favor!”
I learn alongside my children, you see. For everything I learn about them, they learn about me. And in the process, and I feel like we are all learning alongside God, with curiosity and wonder and grieving and suffering.
It will be easy, there will be times of flow.
It will be brutally difficult.
It’s all holy favor, you see, and that’s the confounding part.
God only feels ONE type of way about you.
We need not wring our hands in an attempt to earn love, because that’s the way we have been taught to please a world of broken people and an unpleasable diety.
In actuality, the odds are always, always in your favor, Beloved. Even (especially?) when you’re most hurt, downtrodden, and at the end of your rope.
Whether you invite God to a celebration of the soul or an old-fashioned pity party, just invite him. The Spirit shows up for both.
I’ve been learning some breathwork lately and considering the connectedness with nature that our breath allows. The trees are breathing too – everything in a constant flux of inhalation and exhalation. We literally inhale the fine air the trees exhale; and how nifty is that? Let’s take a page from natureand stir some leaves today.
Words by Jana Greene 