Love Letters to Myself

I’m doing a double dose of Reverb 14 today. So let’s jump in and let Kat McNally introduce the first prompt.

“Today’s prompt comes from the beautiful Amy Taylor-Kabbaz. I’ve gained so much from her Reconnect program, I’d wholeheartedly recommend it to any mama who needs a little help finding her self again. I’m so thrilled Amy agreed to share her special brand of magic with us here at Reverb.

Amy writes:

It all starts with kindness. Everything I have learnt, everyone I have interviewed, every word I have studied has guided me to this simple but profound conclusion: true happiness begins and ends with self-kindness.

No more guilt. No more shoulds. No more comparison.

And the very best way to give your weary soul some kindness at the end of this year? A love note.

Write a letter from you to you… filled with forgiveness, love, and a big bear hug.

Dear Me –

What an interesting journey you set upon – forgetting who you were and then embarking on remembering.  Your path has been littered with clues, some you’ve missed, but it hardly matters because there was never the possibility that you wouldn’t find others.  And it’s been entertaining and interesting to see which ones you did find.  Remember when you first read that old book by Alan Watts On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are, and it was like some sort of cosmic déjà vu.  Each time you’ve been at the end of your rope in despair and uncertainty you let yourself receive a clue.  A reminder.  A delight that intrigued you enough to stick around and soon get swept up.  First you learned to use your eyes, then your ears, then your heart, and now Beautiful You, you trust your own knowing.  Your curiosity is a gift, as is your love of beauty; and your ability to recognize the sacred in everyday living is what keeps the Divine up front and center for you.  Way to go!

You’ve been a harsh critic of what you deem your shortcomings – your slowness to move; your less than loving kindness to your body; your imbalance between having too much of some things and wanting way more of others; your social inadequacies.  You wore shame wrapped tightly around you for so many years, and you kept close company with depression, but you’ve done so much to leave those behind like the baggage that was not meant for you to carry.  Letting go of the old stories was such a wonderful thing to do.

You took to heart Rumi’s admonition to “hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.”  You embrace the balm of loving-kindness, and you believe you are a powerful co-creator in collaboration with a benevolent universe that wants nothing more than for you to live as yourself full-out in vibrant joy.  How does it get any better than that?

When in doubt lavish love on everything, but remember you’re a sovereign being and you get to choose what you’ll pay attention to with both your mind and your heart.  Laugh more and keep wearing red shoes.  And remember as Ram Dass has so profoundly said, we’re all just walking each other home.

Love you!  Me

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Moving on to Day 13 prompt which comes from Marianne Elliot:

Step one: set the timer for 5 minutes and write down as many answers as you can think of to the question: ‘When and how was I brave in 2014?’ Note: remember the private, intimate and small ways in which you were brave as well as the big public ways.

 Step two: Choose one of more of those moments of bravery and write a letter yourself back at the beginning of 2014, letting you know how brave you are going to be that year.

 Step three: Write yourself a short reminder to tuck into your wallet or post above your desk of just how brave you can and will be in 2015.

Well this may be the most difficult prompt so far, because I’m pretty sure bravery and I didn’t cross paths in 2014.  After the requisite 5 minutes of reflecting I came up with 7 tiny things that likely wouldn’t have put even the Cowardly Lion to the test.

But I don’t like to pass up the opportunity to write letters to myself, so…

Dear Me –

You have been brave in the past – deeply-to-the-core brave.  You know you have it in you, and you know can do what needs to be done when the time comes for you to marshall that strength.  It’s good you didn’t have any have-to-be brave things to deal with in 2014, so how about if we celebrate that?

And remember when we’re choosing love over fear it’s possible we can reframe some of the situations you think call for bravery when maybe they just call for more love.  Let’s go with that.

Love you! Me

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So there you have it – a peek into the correspondence to myself.  Do you write letters to yourself?  What have you been brave about this year?  What are you loving yourself for?  Do tell – you know I love to hear.