a brilliant light

I've been told I should start blogging. I started to post on facebook this morning (instead of dealing with the mountain of mail on my desk) and decided to give this a shot. SO... you asked for it.

Over dinner with a friend last night, this topic came up. Then this lovely video came across my feed.

When I began working the 6th step, I started really paying attention to how I talked to myself. I'd look at myself and my mind would immediately fire out a list of everything that was 'wrong' about me. And like most women, it mostly had to do with my appearance - my face, my shape, my hair, etc. I would never allow someone to speak to me the way that I spoke to me. And I wouldn't say to my worst enemy some of the things that my mind would use to belittle me.

Now I hate to practice, y'all. I want to do it perfectly the first time, otherwise I feed that part of me that says there's something horribly wrong with me. I try something once, fail, and say "See?". But any time I want to make a change, I have to practice. So I did. I started to question it. To ask "is that really true?"  When I'd make a mistake and began to berate myself, I'd ask myself "what I would say to someone I love if they made the same mistake?" Would I tell them they were stupid? Would I consider them worthless? Or would I love and support them? And things began to change.

I still struggle with this. If I say something dumb or embarrassing, I  can still lie awake at night rehashing it. When I want a girl to like me, I can still mercilessly pick apart my appearance, my presentation, me. I sometimes look in the mirror and want to change the things I see. I sometimes struggle with staying on my own mat and not focusing on what's happening on yours. I still compare out.

But sometimes, oh those sometimes! I'm ok with how I look. I'm ok with how I feel. I don't walk into a room and feel like everyone is looking at me, judging me, picking me apart. There are a lot of days when I walk through the world wearing my life like a loose garment, with comfort and ease and grace.

To get there I had to practice and I had to begin by telling the truth about what was in my head. The hard truth. And the most amazing thing happened when I started to call out voices. You guys answered me. You do that, too. You struggle with all the same fears and insecurities that I do. You look in the mirror and see "not good enough." We all describe it differently, but it's all essentially the same. Not enough. And together we come to realize that it is NOT true. We are good enough. We are enough. You are enough. You are perfect and beautiful and smart and funny and charming and talented and you are a brilliant light. You are a brilliant light.

And so am I.