20: what am I losing in loving myself? 💌
eclipse season, self kindness, panic attacks, and time travel (november 2021)
Iteration #20 of this monthly letter full of feelings.
This issue's theme is: ・♥︎ the difficulty of self-love ♥︎・
A Time Traveling Feelings Letter (or, eclipse seasons)
〰️〰️〰️ originally sent on May 18, 2022 〰️〰️〰️
I started writing this back in November and never pressed send. I didn't feel ready and I was in a period of panic. I decided this for myself a while back that I was going to move forward with these "missed editions" like a time traveler and whenever I feel ready to share the things I've started writing about, it'll happen. All in its own time, you know? But for now I am really trying to feel and act on what I'm feeling now, which is kind of important because I'm working on being present. And now, hot off another lunar eclipse, I'm back to thinking about where I was in November. Lately, I'm trying not to get caught up in the urgency of getting an idea out as soon as it comes; practicing trusting that things will come back when they're (or you're) ready.
What am I giving up if I am kind to myself? Why does it feel so hard? The difficulty of self-compassion has been coming up a lot for me lately. I had that question in the back of my mind for most of last fall, and as I was reading things on instagram about eclipse season, I felt it activate again. It seemed important. I got an itch to investigate it further so here I am, trying. Or, there I was, trying... and here I am, trying again, another whole eclipse season later.
I can't be the only one for which self love feels... dare I say, triggering? I know I'm not the only one. I know so many of us recoil when we hear a compliment, don't think we deserve to believe it, don't like the way it feels even if we want it to be true. People talk about how it's not easy all of the time, they talk about loving their bodies and thanking themselves and being kind to their inner child but they don't share the secrets of how to get there when it's hard – when opening that door feels terrifying, and when that fact feels shameful. What is so fucking wrong with me that I can't have some kindness toward myself, you know? Jeez, who do I think I am? (There I go again). I have been having panic attacks when I try to just breathe and meet my body where it's at, spend time with myself. I don't believe people when they say they nice things about me, say they love me, and then I feel terrible – how shitty is it to not be believed when you say something nice to someone? I want so badly to be someone who moves through life with so much compassion and love, giving it freely and not holding back, not feeling scared. Not acting out of shame, fear, defensiveness.
But I'm scared. What is there to be scared of? I'm a porcupine with all of my spikes out (?) all of the time, lately. I don't know how to extend love inward. I feel an intense rejection to any practice that asks me to extend kindness to myself. My nervous system tells me to panic. I don't think I deserve it. I feel a tightness, a contraction, a grasping onto something: a wall, a blockage, I don't know what it is. I judge myself for the wall. I am the queen of second arrows. I will send through the second arrow before I even feel the pain of the first one. I won't even notice myself beating myself up and being mean to myself until I'm already three arrows in. And I look at myself from the outside and I try to see myself as someone who doesn't deserve any of the arrows at all, but I can't help but feel something closer to "that suits her – she deserves to feel this pain."
"It is no easy task to be self-loving. Simple axioms that make self-love sound easy only make matters worse. It leaves many people wondering why, if it is so easy, they continue to be trapped by feelings of low self-esteem or self-hatred." - bell hooks, All About Love
YOU DON'T HAVE TO PROVE YOUR WORTH
I know that people are deserving of love just because they are. Not because they are a good person, a good child, a good parent, a good friend, not because they are kind, polite, hardworking; not because they are successful or strong or cool, but they just are.
Do I know that people are born deserving? Sure, yes, of course. Do I believe it? I really want to. I really, really want to. It is hardest for me to imagine it for myself. If I am lazy, do I really deserve love? If I tell a mean joke, fall into bitter tendencies, not think before I speak, show up late, what do I feel like I deserve? Shame, isolation, rejection, punishment, I guess?
You don't have to prove you deserve love. You deserve love by default. You do not have to be perfect. You do not have to prove anything to be loved. OKAY? DO YOU HEAR ME? IS THIS AN AFFIRMATION?!
If I stop trying to be better, perfect, prove I'm worthy of love before I extend self-kindness, if I am able to love myself as I am right now: depressed, flawed, feeling like I've regressed, feeling like I'm at my worst most of the time, like a scared animal in the corner, what does that say about me? Will I stay right here because the external validation is all that's moving me forward? No. I know that (do I know that?) I know, in actuality, my ability to be my "best self" will burst open if I am working from a place of compassion. If I love myself even if I feel rotten, I'm not going to become rotten. My friend Abigail (who teaches an incredible mindfulness class) reminds me: breakthroughs come with self-compassion. If I give myself permission to be kind to myself and stop begging for it everywhere else; If I don't need the external validation, isn't that freeing? Why doesn't it feel freeing? What does that story give me? Something to hide behind? What could limiting myself possibly be protecting me from?
RELEASING THE NEED TO PUNISH MYSELF
Why is my mind clutching so tightly to the record spinning self hatred? Doesn't my body know that those sounds aren't helping? My panicking nervous system needs to be soothed, made to feel safe. So why is my inner voice broadcast making it worse? Why isn't my brain kicking in to help the nervous system? Why does my body feel like it's broken? WHY am I telling my body that it's broken and not meeting it where it is and teaching it new patterns? The second arrow, and another arrow, another arrow. Was the negative self-talk some form of self-soothing at some point in my life that is just really not serving me anymore? Does that make sense? Is this something?
Is my ability to get ahead of the criticism, to say "I know I'm a piece of shit!" – to make myself the butt of the joke before anyone else has a chance to – is it helping me? Do I think hating myself more than anyone else could would protect me in some way? As if getting ahead of all the possible criticisms someone else could have of me will make the blow easier. It doesn't. Am I married to my disclaimers? Clutching on to the illusion of control they offer me? What do I say when I can't be the butt of the joke anymore? If I try to believe that I'm not a piece of shit, if I stop asking for permission and give it to myself. Do I really think I deserve that?
There's a big theory I'm throwing around about not feeling grounded in this reality, feeling connected to an alternate timeline fantasy where ~whatever~ didn't happen: my dad didn't die, I didn't date that person, I made different choices and somehow got ahead of the mistake I feel like most of the time. It's some high-concept sci-fi nonsense, and I'll get more into it in another letter, but the point here is: If I give up on punishing myself whenever I don't show up perfectly present and kind, am I giving up on my alternate reality where I *just am* those things, somehow, because my abandonment wounds aren't digging in at every corner? This fantasy girl and this fantasy life who is perfect and does all of the right things? Do I even like her? Isn't she boring? I guess that's the catch.
꩜ SOMETHING COOL FROM NOVEMBER ꩜
I was featured in the NYC Photo Community newsletter which was pretty coooool. I am my usual deeply-feeling self in the interview, which is admittedly not "cool" in the most widely understood use of the word, but cool to me.
It is wild that this editor does this newsletter every week. The discipline. I generally have a hard time with routines and I was working on pulling a tarot card every day and learning about it; it lasted about 10 days. Guess what each card likes to tell me? Let go, trust yourself, follow your own voice. Sheeeeesh.
How are you learning to love yourself? Do you have any tips? Have you been able to name your blockages/walls? Tell me! xo
⋰ If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.
This newsletter was written from the Onundagaonoga (Onondaga) & Haudenosaunee territory.. To learn more about the stolen land you're occupying, visit native-land.ca ⋰
