October mystifies with cooler and shorter days, and I bow to the playful darkness with a gentle commitment to illuminate the shadow.
My shadow.
My hidden shames, insecurities, fears that quietly operate behind the barely conscious scenes.
My shadow isn’t a creature that needs to be forced into the blaze of light.
My shadow isn’t something to fix. It’s a brokenness that breathes my way to wholeness, that asks for tenderness, starlight, cradling, and in some specific cases, just needs to be left be.
My unique wounding enriches the superpowers of me being a very human me.
And there is a particular thread of toxic thinking that limits and curtails my potential to expand and take bold steps forward, and claim and cultivate a confidence that is my innately mine.
And this thread ravels so tightly around beauty.
This is my Achilles heel.
This is my trip-up that intellectually “knows better” but the knowing has not been integrated into an embodied and compassionate response. Any upsets over the condition of my skin send me into an over-analytic free-fall and the curtain of shame descends and I half-listen in internal fretting spewing on how I am being perceived. It’s my own judgment dishing out the projection and I self-constrict the emergence of my aliveness, of my energy.
When my skin is clear, then I’ll be ready for a romantic relationship.
When my complexion is blemish free, then I’ll really emerge into my full potential as a successful…teacher, leader, performer.
Visible imperfections clutch and craze a deep-rooted insecurity that I am unlovable.
And in a thinking-induced solution I attempt to perfect, to fix. I problem-solve instead of compassionately caring for this wound.
It’s difficult to journey through this image-obsessed society without absorbing damaging misbeliefs about our bodies, our skin, our way of being.
I’ve made ill-fated decisions when it’s come to caring for my sensitive skin. I haven’t been listening and speaking to my skin, I’ve just been obsessively researching and purchasing products that create problems where in actuality (as eye-rolled from my family and frankly stated by dermatologists) no problem truly exists.
So in illuminating my shadow, I witness this sneaking narrative that emanates a pain that needs to be lifted to the light, to be released so I can receive and root in a love that is unconditional and radical in acceptance.
In illuminating my shadow, in befriending my beauty, and I do believe that we are beautiful, that our beauty is just a given and this illusion and perfected quest for beauty distracts us from owning and celebrating our own power – and by power I mean an unshakeable knowing in sacred belonging. But believe me, I’ve squandered my personal power. And I’m going to relinquish my power after I write this post, too, because this is a crack, a wound, and I’m not rushing to Sephora to find a temporary solution. It’s not skin deep, but self-love, self-compassion, self-acceptance requires a daily routine like a solid and healthy skin regimen.
So as part of my healing process, and healing is non-linear, and healing is not time-based but intention ignited, and my intention here is to craft a loveliness list.
Beauty is a feeling.
When I am laughing and sharing my heart truth with people who love me, I feel beautiful.
When I am in the company of a man who cares about me, I feel beautiful.
When I am doing what I love, completely immersed in the joy-bright flow of it, I feel beautiful.
So beauty is a feeling, or at least it is for me. It’s how I access wisdom, through feeling. So I’m going to lean into feeling beautiful through a list of loveliness. Feeling lovely relaxes me into radiance, into wholeness, and so this is where I start and this is where I will begin, again and again, because it’s a practice, and let’s make it a lovely practice.
Danielle LaPorte gorgeously suggests that when we are tangled in anxiety and insecurity to return back to the present through reuniting and rejoicing in our senses. This inspires my October loveliness list:
*Rose Water: When I first get out of bed in the morning, I spritz my room, my unmade bed, the top of my head with rose water. The soft scent lifts away residue from dreams and settles and soothes me into the start of the day.
*Washing The Dishes: Cleaning up right after meals is a love-letter to my future self. Waking up to an empty sink and a kitchen freed of clutter creates ease and signals respect: I respect and give thanks for my belongings, and therefore, respect my space and myself.
*Responding To Texts and Emails In A Timely Matter: A friend of mine who used to work for GQ once offered a piece of sage advice: respond immediately to messages, even a “let me get back to you” will suffice. This practice has alleviated anxiety for me because those messages are not lingering over my head stirring up people-pleasing stress, and I’ve been able to practice saying NO and saying YES. I like being prompt and consistent in communication because it fosters trust and integrity in my relationships and my relationship to myself, and that feels lovely.
*Hot Water and Lemon: Sipping hot water with a squeeze of fresh lemon alkalizes the pH balance of the body, and this simple drink can have celebratory benefits when first enjoyed in the morning on an empty stomach, which is acidic after a night’s sleep. So to harmonize and alkalize, I’ve made a sweet ritual of drinking my hot water and lemon from an exquisite cup gifted to me from a dear friend and slipping outside to breathe and savor and ground down into the rhythm of the day.
*Denim Adore: Cooler weather sends me back into the cherished arms of my jean jacket, and we creatively get to play in ensembles that kick up my confidence with fall fashion flair.
*Tending To Scars: The past year or so has left me with a couple of quirky ass scars. A knife fell on my foot. A dog enthusiastically scratched the hell out of my arm. A temporary tattoo burned my skin and there’s a faint shape of a star that I hope is not permanent. I massage vitamin E oil into these stories, into these tales, and there’s been a lessening of visibility and also, a shift to honor my grit and resiliency.
*This Playlist:
~Hesitate : Golden Vessel, Emerson Leif
~Hunnybee : Unknown Mortal Orchestra
~Light up for You : LOYAL
~The Ways : Khalid & Swae Lee
~I Know : Bayonne
~Los Angeles : The Midnight
~I’m With You : Vance Joy
~Them : Nils Frahm