Love and Playfulness is where it's at

We move through stormy weather, we know that our days are few. We dream and we struggle together and love will carry us through - Trey Anastasio / Phish

These are lyrics from one of my favorite songs by my absolute favorite band. This song and specifically these lyrics always hits me so deep.

Rough times are inescapable. We can not heal our way out of being human. We don't ever reach a point where we say 'I'm so healed that I won't ever have a bad day ever again'. The reality is that stormy weather and bad days are always going to happen, what matters is that we know we have love to carry us through.

Love for our self, love for others, love for our experience and love for the world is what gets us through tough times. When we are having a shit day, the love we have for our self is what lets us know that we are more than one day, more than one situation. No matter what is happening in our life, we are worthy of love.

I am on a personal mission to raise the consciousness of the planet by teaching people to love themselves. This is the underlying mission of any work that we do together.

When we love our self, we don't have to shame our past. When we love our self we don't have to beat ourselves up for the ways we don't measure up. When we love ourselves we don't have to compromise our self for others. When we love our self we don't have to shame ourselves for the shadow side of our being.

These things all still come up. We mess up. We say stupid things. We have bad days, but when we know how to love ourselves through those events, in the same way we would love a child even when they are having a bad day, that is where wholeness lies. That is where our healing is.

Self love is how we grow into the human beings we desire to be.

Just like children, when we are loved, we feel safe. When we are safe we can relax and play. Being playful and silly is a reminder not to take it all so seriously. I am the first to admit, this one can still be hard for me. I am the list maker, the checker offer, the planner...all of these things can get in the way of play. These things trick me into thinking that things are way more serious than they actually are. Trick me into feeling that I am am not deserving unless I am checking things off of a list. Sound familiar??

When we play we open ourselves up to opportunities and possibilities that don't exist when we are taking life so seriously. Being serious keeps us from the wholeness of who we are. Being serious makes us falsely believe that we are in danger and have to keep our guard up to be safe. When in fact, safety is an internal process that happens with ease when we love ourselves.

When we do the work, when we sit with our shadow and love it, ask it what it is protecting us from. When we sit with our pain and disappointment and love it just as much as we love the accomplished parts of us. When we dive deep into learning how to love all parts of our self, that's when we get to really enjoy how fun and playful life can be.