“The cost for living in the past and worrying about the future is the present, and that’s all we truly have as the rest exists purely in our minds to terrorize us.”
– Unknown

 

 

We are haunted.

All we have is today, right now.
We have the choice to spend it wisely with growth, joy and gratefulness. We also have the choice of squandering it away with bitterness and worry.
I have been an expert in that. It seems on any given day it is
so easy to see what it is I don’t have or want instead of seeing what I DO have and the ways ways in which I can achieve what I am looking for. I have defined myself with my failures.

In my post yesterday, I talked about the challenge of allowing myself to be in pictures and videos, and breaking the bad habit of putting myself down for the sake of being a better example to my kids. The truth is, I need to do these things for myself as well.

I have felt that in order to change myself I need to work on my whole self. Body as well as mind, soul and spirit.
I have been “interviewing” my female friends and family to dig up the roots of the beauty beliefs and rituals around me. I want to examine what the heck the point of all of this is.
The startling thing has been finding that so much of what we believe about ourselves and our beauty is MUCH the same. Rooted in the past. No matter what we look like. Gorgeous or plain.
Plump or thin.
Fit or not.
We all carry most of the same hurts and wince at the same things. So much of what we believe about ourselves is sewn from the threads of our childhood and influences growing up. It seems these experiences either taught us and paved the way to who we are as grown women, or repelled us and paved a different path we would end up being more comfortable with. Some were very confident and comfortable in their skin. It was amazing to me. Most of us were not. Either way, who we are is linked to generations of women before us. And either way, we will influence generations of women after us. It’s worth talking about right?

The first question I asked myself, my peeps, and that I’ll ask you is,
do you think you’re beautiful?

Why is this question so uncomfortable? I think we can answer this more accurately based on moments in our lives. If I answer honestly I would say yes. There have been moments.

is the first poem I wrote about a month ago when I made up my mind to start writing again. That has made
me feel beautiful. To start doing something just for me that I love. Writing that first poem gave me the confidence I had needed for so long to choose a different path to live on. How can you choose to feel beautiful today?

Listen to one of my favorite songs by Sara Groves and be blessed and add to the beauty today.

 

 

ON THE WATER

Living life bobbing quietly above an anchor.
Sunk in so deep as if hardened by concrete and spite.

When will I move on these whims and act? Feeling flutters of new.
The best part of something is always the looking forward to it. Anticipating what may spring out from around the corner.
Forward can seem so far away.

Reaching leaves me tired. With so much to say I feel speechless. So much to try- I’m halted. So much to share yet I’m hoarding.

Doubt is the detour.
Always a detour.
Reliable. Loyal. Measured. Predicable and counted on like science.
But where is my faith?!

Faith to move mountains, THIS mountain? How dare I be moved? The audacity of yearning and reaching and dreaming and stretching and imagining and owning a fresh, clean, clear breath of my own.

Bobbing. Slime and grime collecting on my underbelly, waiting to harden like a shell…but now I realize my face warming in the sun.