Waking up...

I feel more hopeful today than I have in a long time.

In teaching, we learn to create successes for students, even if it is a small improvement, a tiny step forward in understanding, we praise them. It gives them hope and makes them want to strive harder to achieve. If we focus on the negative, the things they can’t do, then they will be stuck, not only not able to move forward, but actually regressing, feeling incapable of ever being good enough.

Today, as I took the seat of the teacher in the yoga studio, I drew an angel card from the deck sitting on the platform. It was labeled “Relationship.” Appropriate, I thought, as I have set an intention to heal relationships with my family, with people that I have hurt, lashing out in my own pain, and with people that I have made promises not kept. But the card wasn’t about relationships with other people; it spoke of healing the relationship with yourself first, how important it is to have a positive relationship with yourself.

Whoa.

I have not had a good relationship with myself.

We fight all the time, and the messages I have been sending to myself have been about focusing on mistakes, about how unworthy I feel, about how broken and pitiful I am.

If I want to nurture my own student, I can’t keep being so mean to myself. I can’t keep giving myself messages that come from a place of lack, of emptiness, of unworthiness. If I do, I will never be able to break this cycle of self-abuse.

The card went on to say how the relationship with ourselves is reflective of our relationship to the divine.

Now, I believe that the divine (in whatever form you wish to see it) exists in each and every one of us, that it is our connection to this energy that connects us all as one.

So, if I am abusive to myself, then I am abusing the divine.

Ugh!

About now, I want to start beating myself up for this transgression, but I am going to make a conscious decision to stop right there.

I have been looking outside of myself for answers, relying on others for their favor, their opinions, their concept of what I should or shouldn't be. But like Dorothy and her ruby slippers, I have had it inside of me all along. I have been fighting witches and flying monkeys in my own head, running from my own truth. Time to click my heels and go home again, put a rag on my head and smile at the familiar faces around me.

I am so fortunate. I enjoy the loving support of many friends and loved ones, people who have been right beside me all the way, ready to guide me back to the road home to myself, people who have encouraged me to replace this negative self-talk with positive possibilities, people who have been willing to hold up a mirror so that I can see how truly beautiful and worthy I am.

I am blessed.

I can’t promise that I won’t backslide and start sabotaging myself again, but I can say that I am aware of it now, ready to gently remind myself of the vast ocean of wonderful, capable, and strong that resides inside me.

I’m going to celebrate my successes, small and large.

I move into my new apartment in a few days. It took a lot of courage for me to sign that lease.

I taught my first yoga classes this week and was well received.

I have started therapy and the scary process of healing my dysfunctions.

“Hi. I’m Ruthi, and I’m addicted to my own emotions.”

Is there a support group for that?

Namaste’ ya’ll!