Message on my Mat

I read somewhere that when your muse visits you, you must drop everything and pay attention to her, because you don't know when she will be back in town again.  So here I am writing a blog post past the stroke of midnight.  Glorious Muse, let it be known that I am honoring your inspiration and you may visit me as often as you like!  

Tonight, whilst laying in a resting pose on my yoga mat after getting into my body with stretching and opening up places that felt a little dusty and cobb-webbed (oh hello hip-flexors!), I was told by my inner wisdom that I needed to give someone in my life a message: You are lovable.

As I let that sort of settle into my very present body and open heart center, I imagined myself telling this person the message.  And in that moment of resonance, I realized that the message was also one I needed to tell myself.  I am lovable.  Feeling that deep into the bones, muscles, and breath of my body, a few tears threatened to escape from my closed eyelids.  

On the way home on the subway, I wondered…. why is it so hard to love ourselves?  I've been on the quest to smother myself in self-love for some time now and, yet, hearing those words touch me so deeply it still brings tears to my eyes.  Perhaps for some people this is not a challenge.  Without getting into any philosophical or political debates with anyone (this convo is about LOVE, yo!), I believe most of the world's problems are due to lack of self-love.  Where did we do ourselves wrong, I wonder?  When we were born, we instinctually knew that we were precious.  We were golden.  But somewhere along the way, we forgot.

Awhile back, my siblings were going through boxes of old photos and found this one of me:

Throwback Thursday to Once Upon a Time…...

When they sent it to me, at first I didn't recognize myself (I actually thought it was my sister!) and then my second response was the desire to wrap this happy girl up in a bubble of protection, so that she wouldn't be hurt or experience pain or forget how to love herself.  For that little happy girl in the photograph is absolutely precious and golden.  And lovable.  (Look at that joy on her face!  I just want to smother her chubby cheeks in kisses!)  This also means that adult Helen is precious, golden, and lovable….right down to her core….  how on earth could I forget such Truth?!

I don't have answers to my pondering questions and I'm okay with that for tonight.  Tonight (or whenever you come across this post), my wish is for each of us to take a moment to love ourselves unconditionally for the lovable human beings we are.  Flaws and imperfections included.  Joys, wounds, pain, and all. 

I must reassure you, my self-love is more present than ever and growing each day with mindful practice.  Learning to come home to my body has made remembering this Truth easier.  But I still forget from time to time and so my prayer for tonight is this: 

I am lovable.
You are lovable.
We are all lovable. 

"We are stardust.
We are golden."  -Joni Mitchell, Woodstock