Growing Self Loving

"I have been devoted to building and maintaining spaciousness to be free in." My friend Desiree wrote this to me a few weeks ago. It struck me as the perfect sentence to describe what growing self loving is about.

I suspect we all have different places to build spaciousness around. I may struggle with something that comes to you with ease. And what flows easily for me might be the very place you hope to push out the walls.

Sometimes I feel the very real boundaries of the container that is me in my body. When I only consider myself as my physical body a sense of constriction comes, like this space is too small. I am so much more. The spaciousness Desiree writes of is the movement of the invisible barrier I hold around myself just a bit further outward, breathing room. I'd like to think that the spaciousness is infinite and I suspect it is. There are times when I do experience it as such.

But mostly I am firmly in this physical world and the spaciousness, the self loving, around my full and total package, is somewhere in the middle between complete and total bliss with who I am and self loathing...with a leaning towards bliss over loathing.

Growing the bliss zone takes some conscious effort. Mostly, right now, my work has to do with letting myself sink in to the reality of being Crone. Rejoicing Crone. Embracing Crone. Being fully present to loving myself at this stage in my life. The biggest thing for me now is making time for the activities and self care routines that supports my older body feeling good. My relationship to this time is what I am working on. Rather than feeling I am checking things off a list so I can go do more important things, I am cultivating the time as self love and of the utmost importance. Doing all with care instead of racing through. Letting go of those things that do not help create the spaciousness to love myself, whether they are attitudes or real things.

A difficult attitude to release revolves around the cultural images of outward beauty. To look at the face and body reflected to me from the various mirrors in my life and choose to send love to what I see. This can be very hard when my face does not match the ideas of beauty commonly presented as desirable. I have been practicing smiling and with the smile speaking to myself those words that feel so good to hear from someone I know deeply cares for me....I love you. I am growing myself to be the one who loves me most.