Hello Beautiful Souls,
Oscar Wilde once said “To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
This New Year, we’re taking our intentions a step further by acknowledging what those intentions are really about. YOU.
How was this year for you?
Did you start taking better care of yourself? Become more aware of your patterns? Set more boundaries or expand some limiting beliefs about what’s possible for you? Do you have greater self-esteem, self-worth and love for yourself and others than you’ve ever felt? Maybe the opposite happened… You became more distant, or ashamed of yourself for not losing the weight you wanted to this year. Maybe you’re anxiety and fear went into attack mode and sabotaged dates or job opportunities. Perhaps you’re wondering why you keep up with the same habits that lead you further from your true self, and cannot even fathom how to relate to yourself and others. The message below is meant to touch a chord of self-compassion within you.
2024 In Our Sights
Now that the year is coming to completion, you may remember that resolutions lost their luster a while back, as they can sometimes have us hold a death-grip to inflexible and incompatible expectations that add more stress (in the forms of guilt and shame) to our semi-chaotic lives. Many are now embracing the notion of intentions because they seem to allow us the freedom, time and space to grow without deceptive projections of being somewhere or someone other than where or who we are.
With Love,
In the heart-written lines to come, I ask that you devote one full day (within the week before or after New Year’s Day) to a ceremony of life-bonding with yourself. Self-marriage, or Sologamy, is a metaphorical and literal practice. The promise to practice cherishing and accepting yourself is equivalent to freely making an honorable, loving commitment to accept wherever you find yourself in life. Regardless of your relationship status, choosing to marry yourself is choosing to be a better partner to yourself; and this can only have positive ripples spilling into other areas of your existence. Read on to learn how you can create a Big Day for Yours Truly.
1. Sleep In
Or feel free to just lay around for an hour or two. Give yourself permission to be present and content exactly where you are this morning. Why rush to get out of bed when it’s one of the snuggest places in the whole world? Luxuriate in its warmth like it’s a a kangaroo pouch. Curl up with your pillows and take up as much space you can. The right, middle and left sides are your crystal seabed, a space for deep peace exploration and plush relaxation.
2. Bathe Like a God/ Goddess
After all, it is your wedding day! You deserve to be pampered. Run yourself a bath, toss a few drops of your favorite essential oils, flower petals, Epsom salts in to soak. Play music that relaxes you, if you’d like. Wash your hair and massage your scalp. Exfoliate your skin tenderly. Treat yourself with care, as if you were tending to yourself as a small and precious child.
3. Birthday Suits and Other Special Day Attire
On this glorious day, you may feel most comfortable wearing absolutely nothing, or maybe a dress that belonged to your grandmother, or a cozy pair of sweats and an over-sized sweater. As long as you feel 100% in it, wear it. This holy-day was made for you, so that you can bask in the glory of your imperfect perfection and love yourself as you truly are, with no conditions, demands or stipulations.
4. Mirrors and Candlelight
In a clean and clear space, light a few candles and sit before a mirror. Look beyond your appearance for the heart of the matter (You may have to close your eyes to see yourself from a space of non-judgment). The essence, the layers of personality, or ego– all are part of you. So in this stage, you’re embracing what you see and what is unknown to you, as well as the parts of you that you appreciate and wish you could change. What matters is to spend time with your feelings here, allowing yourself to sense and feel whatever arises without attaching a story. Become curious about these feelings– where in your body you feel them. Ask your pain of its cause and be open to listening to the insights that come forth.
5. Take a Breath
It can be really uncomfortable facing yourself, allowing yourself to be consumed by the elements of your own identity. You’re your own world being forged by the universe’s hand, and it can be intense at times. Go outside, be among nature’s peace and beauty. Walk near water if it flows nearby. Listen for birdsong and turn your face to the sun. Ground your feet into the rich earth and know that you belong here. Breathe deeply, allowing the fresh air to bring new life into you as you go through the transition from “single” to “self-compassionate.”
6. Sacred Vows
You’re the only one for you, which is why you exist in the form that you do. You need nothing outside of yourself. Self-acceptance and self-worth cannot be granted by external influences. Your vows are to find the courage, the personal power to say and do the things for yourself that only you can. If there’s anyone who needs to be recognized as your soulmate, it’s you. From your heart, speak the vows aloud to your reflection.
Vows that I keep close to my own heart are:
- I vow to look inside myself for truth, so that I may trust my path completely.
- I promise to see myself naked, to sit with my feelings in times of pain, to embrace the child within myself when she hurts, feels afraid and unworthy.
- I pledge to dance when the sun’s brilliant rays shine upon my face, and I will smell the flowers blossoming in spring and listen when the wind
- makes music of leaves.
- I will remember not to judge myself too harshly for being human. Vulnerabilities, blind spots and all.
- I vow to do my best to appreciate all gray areas, and perhaps eventually, color them in.
7. The Morning After
Begin each morning by embracing yourself. Give a lazy sweet smile, for today is a day unlike any other. Look at your hands and kiss them delightedly! They are valuable tools that allow you to sculpt your reality. Put one over your heart, feel it dancing inside your chest? Knowing the song, beat by beat. Get familiar with your rhythm. You are now your primary partner (and always have been, but now you’re acknowledging it). You are the person most responsible for your health, wholeness and happiness; and you came here to discover truth and experience the full spectrum of being as a friend to yourself and all of humanity.
8. Finding an Ever-After
For the rest of your self-married days…
May you encounter whatever happenings meant to lead you deeper and more openly into the sound space of our own heart. Meditate, journal, exercise, paint on wood, dry flowers in the summer when they’re most fragrant, bake more. Spend your life cultivating loving kindness. Do you know how many beach bonfires, strangers meant to be friends and sunrises over the mountains await you if only you’ll wake up to them? Choose them?
In Love, One May Struggle
Pain doesn’t disappear just because we think we’re thinking positively or doing a bunch of aura cleansing yoga postures. However, we can learn to release that suffering by, first, feeling it and then, dissolving the emotional attachment to it. Feelings are universal, but also temporary– and are therefore, important messengers. Most of the time, we reject, avoid or deny our pain a presence in our lives, which is precisely the way to lose the present moment. Those hidden feelings reveal themselves in mysterious ways, however, through unconscious outbursts and behaviors that leave us questioning our sanity or if we were possessed when we said those hurtful things. By surrendering to the feelings inside of our suffering, rather than our judgments about it, we can shine light on the internal dark corners where unconsciousness is stored.
When tending to the garden of self-marriage, know that you will get your hands dirty. But that dirt is the sacred secure foundation for the flowers of your tender loving soul to bloom.
