One of the things I’ve gotten really into this year is working out with youtube exercise videos. I haven’t been to the gym since March for obvious reasons, and now that the weather’s getting colder + the days are getting darker, I’m mostly exercising with my virtual fitness instructors that I’ve come to know + love.
One of my favorite things about these videos is the instructors' upbeat enthusiasm + earnest encouragement. When I started, I thought this was going to annoy me, but I’ve come to love the cheesy pep-talks + all around extra-ness of the whole thing, which has offered some wholesome delight through the heavy dreariness of the year.
A few days ago, I tackled a harder-than-average workout. This is what the instructor said at the end as we were cooling down:
“I think we need to acknowledge that before we even started, you saw that this workout was an hour; you saw that it was high intensity; you saw that it had cardio *and* resistance work. You saw all of that, and what did you do? You decided to do it anyway. You saw something you knew was going to be a challenge + you decided to do it. That’s how strong you are. That’s not easy. Never underestimate your strength. What you’ve done today is yours.”
Y’all, I was so moved I started crying.
Which is perhaps an indication I could benefit from more honoring + affirming around my efforts + steps forward + wins.
Rather than beating myself up because something feels hard (because it “should” feel easier so what’s wrong with me?), perhaps it would be a better strategy to try affirming the resilience + strength it takes to be alive in this collective moment (let alone productive, in any sense of the word).
So I’m trying to give myself credit for the small wins that, if I’m honest, take some effort -- the 20 minutes of uninterrupted writing I managed to fit in today, the workout I just completed (even though it took me a half hour to work up the stamina to tie my shoes + put on a bra), the nagging task that’s been on my to-do list for 2 weeks that I finally did in 5 minutes.
Because it’s okay + human + to be expected that things feel hard + take more out of us + don’t always feel like enough.
Because there’s a lot of hard stuff we’re doing, enduring, managing, and surviving right now.
And all of this means that our resilience + survival is that much more impressive + worthy of our celebration + affirmation.
What might it look like to see + name + acknowledge the small victories + steps forward -- the tiny acts of care you give yourself or your loved ones, the small thing you did today that felt good, the grace you extended when it was all too much, the moment you remembered to take a deep breath?
It all matters.
You being here, continuing on, is enough.
Self-Love and Life-Force
I’ve come to understand that one of my primary life tasks is to figure out this self-love thing – to come into right relationship with my real self, find peace and okayness in that realness, and revel in the experience of having this life and being this self.
I believe we all come in with and are in possession of a dazzlingly gorgeous life-force, an animating energy that is the magic that lives within each of us, transcending any measurement or definition.
To me, self-love means enjoying this life-force, this core aliveness, connecting to it with intention and not making our experience of it conditional on anything else.
My sense is that so many of our troubles with self-love are a result of being asked by the dominant culture to spend our life-force (in currencies of energy, attention, creativity, time, money, etc.) in ways that deplete rather than nourish us and separate us from our life energy rather than deepen our connection to it, often in service to arbitrary, culturally-defined standards of goodness and enoughness.
I’ve found that self-love is not found in convincing myself that I’m “good enough.” More often I’ve found it in stepping into spaces and connecting with energies that render the idea I could be anything other than good, enough, and okay nonsensical and absurd.
So when I’m struggling to love or care for myself in the ways I want (because that happens in a culture like this one), I don’t try to convince myself of my worthiness. Instead I ask: how can I step back into the current of my life-force? Where is aliveness in this moment? (remembering that because I’m an organic, cyclical creature, aliveness might mean rest). What is there to enjoy right now in my life and self? What would it take to remember that my life and self belong to me and are for my joy?
But mostly, I just try to stand in who I am – who we all are – incarnations of consciousness, energy, imagination, miracle, and mystery. And really, what other than love could meet us here?
Accepting the Gifts
I received a generous and surprising gift this week. As I opened the box and unwrapped its contents, I was filled with delight, excitement, gratitude…and nervous discomfort. It’s not always easy to be on the receiving end of generosity, and in this case, staying with it felt like an act of sustained spiritual concentration.
This is what I know: living a meaningful, grounded life requires being available for the unexpected, the abundant, the generous, and the grace-filled, but actually living this way often feels like an uncomfortable challenge, in part because of the systems we live in. Like capitalism.
Free generosity violates its rules and logic. In it, everything has a price tag and our worth (and very survival) is tied to our labor and reduced to our productive output – our existence spins around monetary exchange; resources and power are distributed inequitably; and our intrinsic worth is not an inherent given.
So when I received my gift this week, I immediately asked myself: what have I done to deserve this? Nothing, of course, and that made me nervous.
It has me thinking: how much goodness am I tempted to shut out because I’m afraid (subconsciously, probably) that it will reveal my innate unworthiness? How many gifts do I reject (from loved ones, strangers, or life itself) because I’m afraid I’ll be found out as “not enough?”
All of this goes deep, and it seems the first thing has to be finding a way to agency, freedom, and enoughness. This is what creates space for goodness, grace, and beauty to pass through – those things that already belong to all of us: the gifts that surprise us, defy convention, and maybe even challenge but we thought we knew about the world and ourselves. There will be voices that say you don’t deserve these gifts, that they’re not meant for you. Unwrap and enjoy them anyway.