Self Love - 1 of many examples...

I was about 12 or 13 when I really started to get in a lot of trouble. I mean I can’t remember a phase in my life I wasn’t getting in trouble, but this story is about what I am remembering that I would do with my alone time, and not loose my …dignity? Sanity? I had a lot of it, alone time. I mean, I was often sent to my room as punishment. I can sort of laugh about that now, seeing that it was actually a gift in a way, but to my young mind it felt like a punishment, like I was bad and burdensome, and no one wanted to be around me.

I would do something, or not do something, and get sent to my room. Automatic punishment. Grounded for what feels like most of my childhood, I’d play music and sing, dress up, play with my toys, color, whatever.

Then when being sent to my room wasn’t punishment enough, those mediums were also taken away. No more radio, no more toys… honestly taking away my radio was the meanest of all. I loved music and music moved me. I used to fall asleep listening to night time talk shows and “the love hour”, whatever they called that. So with no radio I really felt alone. It was just me, my bed, some books. I read a lot of RL Stein lol the dreams I’d have… I’ll share one with you, another time, but i remember it having a profound impact on my waking, it changed my life. I could read one of those RL Stein books in a couple days. Sometimes I’d stay up til wee hours to finish it in one night. Anyway…

After they caught on to me reading under my blankets with a flashlight, that would get confiscated. No more reading, unless it was my scriptures. What was left for me to do in my room alone, well it was just me, a mirror behind my door, and my imagination.

I’d make up games in my room with myself. I’d find ways to still play, somehow. One of the most entertaining of my innovations to play was making faces at myself in the mirror. I’d pretend I was this singer or that movie star. I could make myself laugh, or cry. I could be whatever I wanted to be, in the mirror.  

This developed into a relationship with myself in a way that I saw myself as my best friend… and sometimes my worst enemy. When others didn’t accept me, I had a hard time accepting myself. And when I was accepted, I congratulated myself, I celebrated, in the mirror. I got really comfortable, and uncomfortable with my reflection. Some days I feel like I look like a haggard old winch. Others, a gliding goddess on silvery clouds…

It’s all me. I am this and that.
As are you… we are a binary, after all. We all have darkness and light, expansive qualities, and painstaking limitations. Often times in my life I’ve felt this body itself is my limitation. Sometimes it’s the expansive quality of my mind that wreaks havoc in my life, without proper awareness to the boundaries, our exaltations can also be our detriments. Meeting limitations is something I’m quite familiar with.

Something that Human Design gave me was the proper boundaries to these qualities within myself, or not self, and in the world at large. I sure do forget at times just where those boundaries are, but it’s why I’ve stuck to this system for so long. And that in itself is somewhat of a miracle lol ask anyone who’s known me for any remarkable length of time and they’ll agree. I’ve bounced around and delved into so many jobs, so many modalities. And this one, well it has consistently just made practical sense.

That doesn’t mean I always like it, but it is consistent. In a world where I’ve have had very little consistency, it’s been reliable, and real. Experimenting with HD, it has proven itself to me, time and time again. And what an interesting thing to see for an ego being… anyway…

Maybe my childhood was riddled with loneliness, or aloneness, a bit of both, and that has pained me much of my life. But I can see, through this awareness how maybe that was actually a gift in some weird way. All my life I’ve known ‘it’s just you and me, babe’, talking to myself in the mirror. And it’s true!

We were born alone (most of us, not talking to the twins out there lol) but even in that, we all are so incredibly different, we have our own unique filters, and we will die with those differences, never ever will we be like anyone else, even if we tried, so we might as well stop trying to be anything but that, and live out who we were born to be, yeah? This has been a concept I found easy to embrace, until I’m met with resistance, yet again… bumping into boundaries left and right, yes it has been quite often. Sometimes shocking me. And to deal with that, I’ll share a story but for another time. I’ve got lots of stories.

I was born weird, and that’s not a problem for me anymore. I love myself… despite all odds. And when I’m not living myself (meant loving, but living as myself, too) I can see where I didn’t pay close enough attention, and remember. And laugh! Because I can surly be quite a clown sometimes… we really are stupid before and stupid after.

How can you love yourself a little more today? How can we rewrite that old story to align with the healthier, more embodied, Real You? Where do you need support to amalgamate, acclimate, integrate and alchemize? I’m here for that!

P.S. my bathroom counters do not look like that lol but hey even if it did… I would (still) love myself.