Finding the “Message” in the “Mess”
March 9th, 2010
I was walking my dog today and came upon this sign. I immediately knew it was a message and also a metaphor for what’s been present for me over the past few months.
I’d been feeling disconnected from myself. I had let my morning practice go, I’d not been eating well or sleeping enough and the word exercise had been permanently removed from my vocabulary. I was focusing on the “mess”, illustrated quite nicely here in the form of graffiti, behind the message. That was easy. “So shine” felt too hard.
At 2:00 in the afternoon something in me pushed past my resistance and I began to do my “morning” practice at that hour. As I was writing in my journal, stating and adamantly claiming all that I was ready for and wanted, including commitment from others personally and professionally, I heard this very faint voice say, “Really? You want other people to commit to you when you haven’t been committed to yourself? How could that possibly work? You are teaching people how to treat you by the way you treat yourself. You must first become the thing you want for yourself to yourself. Then the thing you want will come.” I knew then it was time to become the commitment I was seeking from others. But how?
Almost immediately, the Mary Oliver poem came to mind where she says, “To live in this world you must be able to do three things:
1. To love what is mortal, temporary, and fleeting.
2. To hold it against your bones as if your life depends on it.
3. And when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.”
Today I realized that I want to enter into this relationship with myself as if my life depends on it, because the truth is, it does. I want to let go of focusing on the “mess” and embody the message “So shine” – even when it feels challenging.
So, with you as my witness, I am declaring my willingness to change my ways and get my shine on! I hereby commit to my total and complete Self-care from the inside out starting right here and right now. And I know that as I become the commitment to myself I will have that commitment show up in my external world. And So It Is!
What do you want to have more of in your life? How committed are you to becoming this first? Are you ready to join me in getting your shine on as if your life depends on it and focus on the message instead of the “mess”? If so, I support you 100%. Keep me posted on your progress. I want to hear.
To commitment – yours and mine!
So shine!
