What if everything you do is okay?
Bombarded with information in these times, with the click of a button I can know almost anything. My daily life is often filled with trips to bookstores, reading facts and figures on-line, or proselytizing with friends.
All this has surmounted in having a lot of expectations on myself to do, have, perform.
In a world where I know what I should do, and lead such a privileged life, I expect much of myself.
Driven to accomplish, I am masculine most of my day.
Today, I awoke with the thought, “What if everything I did today and everything I wanted was okay?” No shoulds, no coulds, no ottas, just pure, simple, permission.
Celebrate yourself today
It felt like my birthday. I got excited. The mere declaration gave me pause, realizing all the ways in which I pressure myself, day in and day out, subtly, but profusely, to be perfect.
I think I should get up at a certain hour, although I currently love being a night owl, as I seem to get a lot done in the late hours of the night when all the world is asleep. Something about the dark, knowing I won’t be receiving visitors or phone calls, sets my nervous system at ease and lends itself to creativity.
I think I should do certain things in the morning. I have a routine. I light incense, drink warm lemon water, journal my morning pages, make a healthy breakfast. The routine of this and the subtle pressure I put upon myself to be perfect, to apply all the knowledge I have and thus live accordingly, robs me of my creativity and full permission to explore the vastness of life and the wide array of ways in which I could start my day. So what if I want to get up and sit in pj’s and get on Facebook?
Currently, I am writing a novel. The pressure of this has become heavy. Like a blanket that covers me, I find it not nurturing, but suffocating. Pressure to do, to deliver, to get it right and to get it done, have left me like a child running from a parent who says it is time to go to bed. I am fiercely resisting the pleasure of my craft and it feels like a pressure cooker inside.
Invite play
So, today, I give myself a free day, free of expectation, necessity, or should. A day to play with the innocence and freedom of a child, I shuck the adult responsibilities I have shouldered in effort to be mature, responsible and seemingly perfect and I give myself permission to play.
Why wait for my birthday to have a day just for me? Today, I get to indulge, dip in the pool of life in a way that feels good to me, without any commentary from the slave driver in my mind, who smacks the whip and urges me on.
You see, the more aware I become, I realize the degree to which I am a perfectionist, expecting me to always get it right, leaving little room for joy. The voice in my head is often commenting, subtly, on every thing I do.
Today, I recognize and honor the deep beauty and wisdom in what it is to play, to be amused, and I invite my inner critic to have a day off.
It is this voice inside that, without full recognition and healing, via changing its tune, and inviting it out, slowly, to join the party, that shows up and judges others, or tells me I am separate and apart.
To heal others and the world, we must start with ourselves. Let’s heal our inner critic and soothe it, like a medicinal salve, and let it know, it doesn’t have to work so hard.
Today, I play, in full freedom, in the name of inviting the little girl within, who has tried so dang hard her whole life just to do right by you, to come out, shed her weights, and see the light of day. For today, my inner love-child, today, is your birthing day.
Recreate the possibility of adult
What if I just play all day long? What does that make possible? We all were taught about what it is to be an adult. Responsibility, work, provide, stability. Perhaps you even inherited subtle, or not so subtle, messages like, being an adult is hard, a sacrifice, burdensome.
What does being an adult mean to you? Let’s change the conversation around adult and play with what’s possible! You me, all of us, we are free, powerful, creative beings capable of manifesting beyond our wildest dreams! Before we can manifest that which we desire, we have to be a vibrational match, and if I am sitting here judging, or begrudging, than I shall only attract more of the same.
It’s time. The time is now. We are waking up, realizing these ancient secrets and the truth about the way the world works, and we can loosen the grip on ourselves and begin to receive the sweet nectar of amusement, and that, my dear friends, will attract more and more nectar! We shall feast upon the sweetness of being!
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