When I consciously embarked on my Year of Self-Love in 2010, I was thinking.. Self. I was thinking Self-Love had nothing to do with what someone else thought of me, or how they showed up in my life. I thought it all came from inside me.
So I was surprised to discover that one of the most important themes that year was Connection. Creating deeply satisfying relationships, where I honored myself first by understanding and respecting my own boundaries, but in doing so I was able to connect much more deeply with others, which made me feel whole again.
And I learned this.. that I needed Connection as much as I needed Self-Love. That Connection fueled my Love of Self because it gave me a place to rest. It also helped me to see. For if I could see others through the eyes of Love, and the others were my mirrors, I could come to understand and Love myself. It continued back and forth.
In this beautiful TED talk by Thandie Newton, she takes it even further, saying that our Oneness is more true than our selves, and that the Oneness is everything. I hope you'll take the time to watch. It is about 14 minutes long.
Viewing this via email? Click here for the video.
Eve Ensler gives one of my favorite TED talks. ***Trigger warning: descriptions of domestic violence.***If you are reading this in blog-posts-by-email, click here for video.
Something to ponder on your Wednesday morning: Emma Thompson in the fight to make self-hating women an Endangered Species. Reading this via email? Click here for video.
 Photo by angrylambie This is the third installment in the Summer SCHOOL of Self-Love series.
Check out Assignment #1, Embrace Yourself, here.
Assignment #2, the Self-Love Snapshot, is here. Today's assignment has 3 levels to it, although the third is a “fun level” that you can do at *anytime*, it is actually a togetherness project by my friend Becky Jaine. We’ll revisit mirror-love throughout the summer as a reminder to move up another level if you haven’t moved on already. I DID promise, after all, that you’d be wiping a lot of lipstick off your mirror!
First off, before I announce the winner, I've decided to dust off my Oscar acceptance speech. Okay, I've never actually written one, but if ever I did, I think this would be the good time to give it! These 12 days after the unveiling of the Church of the Holy Wow have probably been THE Holy Wow-iest days ever. I am enormously grateful to the people* who contributed prizes, promoted the giveaways, and showed up to participate in my big re-launch in whatever way they felt called. Thanks, first and foremost to Goddess Leonie and my Goddess Sisters who have provided me with a very real sanctuary to just be my naturally crazy, enthusiastic self without anyone thinking I'm weird. Well.. without anyone thinking I'm super weird. No one tried to tell me my idea was stupid or not worth pursuing. Quite the opposite. My Goddess Sisters picked me up on their shoulders and carried me down to the fifty yard line. Holy Wow. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It's been a very strange ride and I've been so amazed at the response to the new Soul Spackle on every level. When I wake up in the morning a little queasy, worrying that I've exposed too much of myself here -- which is how I've felt the last 12 days -- I'm then touched by an email or passing comment from someone who clearly *gets it*. Which makes it okay. More than okay, actually. It is very very good. Below is one of my favorite videos ever, by McCabe Russell, set to Amy Steinberg's "Exactly". It is my "gift" to you, and it is a reminder to myself that ultimately it is so so so worth Being Brave. And now, because I nearly cried when I selected the winner, without further ado.. the winner of the Grand Prize Self Love Explosion is......... Maggie!Many blessings to you for a hugely wonderful Summer of Self-Love!
*Goddess Leonie, Goddess Allurynn, Effy Wild, Dee Morrison, Alexis Yael, Megan Monique, Robyn, Gina Rafkind, Petrea Hansen-Adamadis, Kristen, Flora Mae, Daphne Cohn, Rachel McDonald, Vera Lothian, Jo Crawford, Halo Quin, Becky Jaine, Loran Hills, Goddess Jess Lyn Fox, Leila Lloyd-Evelyn, Melissa Prince, Cassandra Key, Tea Priestess Dionne, Emmanuelle Lambert, oh good gravy... they're starting to play the music.. if I forgot you, it wasn't intentional.. much love!
Yesterday I told a friend that our bodies are meant to be lived in and enjoyed (she was talking about dancing, wouldn’t you know). I often think one of our biggest problems with being present to our lives in each moment is our disassociation from our bodies. We tend to live in our heads much of the time.
But.. here's a new thought: do we embrace, appreciate and embody our minds, and how they work? Despite being in our heads all the time, I don’t think we do. And we should! Our beautiful minds, different as they are, should be lived in, exercised, marveled at, and enjoyed! Just like our bodies!
I recently watch this amazing TED talk with Temple Grandin, (which made me to run out and rent Temple Grandin the movie. I planned on seeing it but had never quite gotten to it). I was so inspired that I knew I wanted to write a little something about embracing how our *own* minds work. Before I go on, would you spare 20 minutes to listen to Temple?
What kind of thinker are you? Do you fit into one of her models or, like me, feel there might be another model or overlapping ones? Do you know how to structure your life to make your personal brand of thinking work for you rather than against you?
Today’s Reverb 10 prompt comes from Alice Bradley: Let Go. What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why? First, a little Frou Frou song called "Let Go" because it has been in my head since we were given this prompt. Last month I wrote Dear You: A Leavetaking, about being in the midst of that messy process of letting go of things and people who do not help my Being, as Rumi would say. Aside from that, I came to this prompt thinking there was very little letting go in my 2010 life. When I let the prompt sit and stir for a while, I realized that there is really so much I have let go of this year. First there's the obvious, which may seem superficial but was the change that set all the rest into motion: In February I gave up gluten after discovering I have a wheat allergy; during the summer I gave up meat and dairy and experimented with veganism; in the fall I gave up all forms of sugar went off the Pill. Holy wow. Essentially, I began giving up things that were not good for my body. Perhaps not 100% of the time, but more often than not. Or else how can I claim to be learning to love myself if I cannot even respect the boundaries my body has given me?
Last night, a friend introduced me to Sadie via this fabulous and short YouTube video. Honestly, I think we all have a little Sadie inside us, and if we remember that, perhaps we will stop being so mean to ourselves. Because Inner Sage Sadie does not deserve it -- just look at that face!! This week I started the Inner Mean Girl Cleanse. It's all about taking those nasty voices and mean girls inside you and turning them into allies. And it's about time. I have this one Inner Mean Girl who throws spitballs at me every time I so much as *think* about going back to school. And I'm done with her. Sadie says I can, and she's a wise woman in a little girl's body, so there.
Ever since I can remember, music has been the most effective, reliable medicine I could reach for. It didn’t matter whether it was pouring out of my toy record player or the crappy cassette recorder I carried everywhere as a kid, the fancy stereo I had in my twenties, or my currently dying green mini-iPod. The medicine of music has been an immediate and often universal recognition of hurts and loves and truths that sometimes get lost in the fog of day-to-day living. I find that it meets me where I am in the moment, accepts me as I am, and brings the truth up and out of me.
So last year I introduced Music Medicine Saturdays, where I share some tunes with you that have carried me in the dark, and lifted me out into the light.
Oh, the journey of Self-Love. It has had the same ups and downs of any other relationship I’ve ever known.Yet the stakes are much higher. Who, after all, is guaranteed to be with me all the moments of my life? I’d better get used to that fact. It is a process. (Be on the lookout for, Crazy Sexy Self-Love Links, coming soon! for more juicy Self-Lovin’ I found in the blogosphere.) Tori Amos -- Winter This song is less about self-love than about someone outside ourselves offering unconditional love and the wish that we might one day see ourselves as they see us. My best friend has long been the one person who has completely seen me and loved me no matter what. When you gonna love you as much as I do?
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