Sitting alone on the balcony before dawn this morning, I reflected on where I was at this moment. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. Feeling the coolness of the air touching my skin, watching the sky whisper with the glow of sunlight, I realized my soul was quiet. Taking some deep breaths, I allowed my gratitude to fill my lungs, connecting with what was going on in my body. I realized the backache and hip pain has left me. Sipping my coffee and listening to the morning energy in the complex rev up, I gave thanks for many things. The fact that my daughter and I are attending physical therapy together and both taking responsibility for the pain of inactivity. We have been doing it for weeks, but yesterday it dawned on me how important doing that together is to me. Anytime you can have an intimate moment with a teenager should be a blessing!
Life is about relating, relationships. How I see myself with you. What I feel with you, in a certain situation, or practicing a certain behavior. But I have to slow down to experience it. Learning to relate to myself, finding out who I truly am, what I really believe, and evaluating whether I want to continue thinking the way I do, is important to my growth. It is when I am able to embrace all of me, that I learn to embrace you with my spirit. What I don't accept in myself, I fear in others. For when I judge you, I am really connecting personally to something I recognize but don't want to see in myself.
Today I had the awareness that I still have moments of trance-like existence while in the same breath realizing how alive I really am. The knowledge that I have changed dramatically yet slowly are found in those Ah Ha! moments when I look back and wonder WHEN I changed. I capture those moments in a journal because I need to see evidence of that change. My self esteem grows when I can look at the things that I have accomplished by looking for what no longer works in my life and discarding it to make room for new behaviors. I find peace in this practice for it is the substance of who I am and what I am capable of.
