Loving yourself is not wrong or unholy
Do you need a quick fix?
One to remedy all the things that are wrong, make peace with yourself?
You are not the problem. The way you think about yourself is. The way you war with your insides and outsides, the way you punish yourself and try to exile the parts of you that don't seem to fit; the way you've been made to believe that there are parts of you that don't seem to fit...
You are not the problem.
You do not need to be fixed.
You only need to be loved.
And you can do that.
Treating yourself with anything less than love and compassion will not heal the ways in which you feel fractured broken.
You can't hate yourself into healing and becoming.
Tara Brach said:
"Feeling compassion for ourselves releases us from the self-hatred that prevents us from responding to our life with clarity and balance."
Forgive yourself for believing you had to be anyone and anything other than who you are to be holy and good and true.
The quick fix is tempting because it seems to offer instant relief. A quick patch up, a get-away car, a distraction… these things and more offer the illusion of reprieve, a moment where you don't have to stare at the hard thing before you, the fractured thing in front of you, the brokenness inside of you.
But it will not serve you how you want it to. Only showing up to here and now can do that.
Start by re-defining your relationship with discontent, unease, pain, discomfort… the nagging feeling of something not being quite right. These feelings are not against you... they're trying to save you.
You might feel sad, but you are not sadness.
You might feel anger, but you are not anger.
You might feel hopeless, but you, my friend, oh holy one, are not hopeless. Only when you face yourself can you allow these temporary experiences of emotion to rise in their full capacity so they can pass through you and fade into wisdom.
Mindful Prompt: "It is such a great moment of liberation when you learn to forgive yourself, let the burden go, and walk out into a new path of promise and possibility. Self-compassion is a wonderful gift to give yourself." John O'Donohue.
Liz xo
From my upcoming series, "When You Need A Quick Fix" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco
