From the Rotund: “Fuck deserving it. …there are millions of people in the world who are BETTER than me. The difference is that, honestly, what I DESERVE isn’t going to determine what I go after in this world. Not when it comes to happiness or work or clothes that look awesome.”

What do I deserve? I don’t feel like I deserve anything good or complimentary or expensive. I don’t feel I deserve to be called smart or pretty or even tell people that I’m a yoga teacher. I certainly don’t feel like I deserve to put together a yoga/volunteering program in one of seven countries of my choice, let alone be the yoga teacher for that program (and so I secretly expect it to fall through) or to get published whenever I freaking finish this book (and so I not so secretly avoid working on it). Any compliment I get I assume the person either pities me or is crazy. Any opportunity I get I think “surely they’ve made a mistake, they can’t want me,” because I haven’t worked hard enough or long enough or whatever ‘enough’ I can think of.

This is no way to live.

How is it that I can accept every rejection as well formed and reasonable, but I can’t accept any praise at all?  But reversing that doesn’t seem logical either. How can I  accept only the praise but reject the rejections?  I’m back to the prayer of Byron Katie’s again: “God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen.”  How do I do that? I have no idea.

Now What?
I just got back from my dream vacation. The vacation I’d been fantasizing about for three years. The vacation I dreamed would change my life. A Las Olas Surf Safari. A week of fun in the sun and ocean in Mexico. A week that happened to also contain my birthday, with a private surfing lesson, a massage and a big birthday party on a beautiful terrace overlooking the Pacific. A week of trying something over and over again and still not standing up, but still trying (wanting to try) again and again. My dream vacation. It’s over.

Now what? Before I left I was debating which would be worse: if my dream vacation changed my life, or if it didn’t. Now I know the answer. My life not changing is far, far worse. My first inclination when I got into the car in the airport parking lot was to cry. I didn’t. But then I started beating myself up for all the projects I haven’t started, and all the ones I didn’t continue after a manic start. How do I change my life? That’s always the question and I never have an answer that doesn’t involve abject poverty. Sure, I come up with ideas that allow me to have lots of material belongings, but the HGTV Dream House is just not that easy to win.

So now what? I have absolutely no idea. Except one. Maybe. Kind of. What if I make this the Year of Love? The night before my birthday I realized that this past year had been a year of healing. I didn’t even remember until the next day that on my birthday last year I’d gone to the World Wellness Weekend and seen Deepak Chopra, and met my future acupuncturist. The week before that I’d done a meditation workshop and before that I’d started taking yoga. I was determined to heal myself. That was my sole intent. In some ways I did.

As I thought about the Year of Healing, I realized that in order to heal I had to learn to take care of myself. Not just work and pay bills and eat, but really take care of myself. I had to go to yoga, go to acupuncture. I finally took a vacation after three years of fantasizing about it!! I had to think I was worth enough to spend the money on those things. I had to believe I deserved healing and health and relaxation and adventure.

So this year, I’m proposing (maybe, kind of) a Year of Love. This year will not be so much about falling in love and finding a mate (although I really really really want that), but more about Loving Myself. Loving yourself, unconditionally, is the first Principal of any Self Help Book, yet it can be the most difficult thing to do for a Self Help Addict. It’s only through that love, that self love, that you can truly appreciate every kind of love: romantic, familial, sociable, gracious, compassionate love.

So here’s to the Year of Love. May I be able to see Love in all it’s forms. That’s my intent for this year.

I just got back from the beach. I took a couple of days off to re-coup and read and write. I went to the beach with a friend where I did very little reading and even less writing. I did spend lots of time by the pool and jumping waves in the ocean (including hand stand attempts which resulted in a little microdermabrasion on one side of my face).

One of the things I realized while there is: Women hate themselves. The little reading I did included He’s Just Not That Into You, a modern classic, which my friend had borrowed and given back. I hadn’t read it in years and was stunned, again, by what women will accept.  Where’s the self love? Where’s the confidence so a woman doesn’t have to just grasp to a faint scent of commitment wafting near a man, not even on him.

It made me so sad. But what have I learned since I first read it? Probably nothing really new. It’s not about learning I don’t think. It’s about feeling. How you feel about yourself and the life you live. If I have a life I really love, then I won’t be trying to catch some man who makes me doubt myself by not getting caught.

Loneliness is the alternative though until Mr. Right comes along. Is loneliness such a bad thing? If a woman really loves her life, is she lonely just because she doesn’t have a man?  Is the the fear of being alone really as scary as some of the relationships you’ve had?

I was rereading an article from Yoga Journal about change: the willingness to change, how to change, the change process. In the past year I’ve made huge leaps and strides. Found mulitiple edges and reached over all of them. I feel different from the person I was a year ago. I am different, I feel it in my bones and my flesh.

But the anxious one in me constantly brings up a really good point: How can I be so different, when my life looks just the same? Same job, apartment, body, loneliness. How can I possible be different? Or is the external change coming? First inside then outsite, maybe. I don’t know.

I’ve been running into lonely poems. Last night, well at this point two nights ago, my yoga teach put up part of a poem by Hafiz:

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice
So tender,

My need of God
Absolutely
Clear.

It was so sad and beautiful that I looked it up, and found the first part even more sad and beautiful:

Don’t surrender your loneliness
So quickly.
Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

“Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly/let it cut more deep.” I can’t get over that. The loneliness is a constant. I can’t imagine it going even deeper. It never goes away, no matter the city or job or body, or how many people around me, it stays. It’s the same. It makes the same grooves, the same cuts, unchanged.

But I want to change, be different not just feel different. I want new grooves, paper cuts making a new map of uncharted happiness, newly discovered joy.

Let me just say upfront, I have no idea.

Every now and then I pick up an old SHB. One I’ve read, but haven’t touched in a while. It’s always interesting to look at the what I’ve underlined, what, apparently, was important to me at the time I was reading it.

Today I picked up The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It, Plan It, Live It, by Debbie Ford. Something I hadn’t underlined before:

To have the best year of our lives, we must expose the fantasy that keeps us waiting and wishing for things to changes. Only then will we unlock the power to make our actual lives great…. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

I’ll be happy when I …

make a certain amount of money; buy a house; have a balanced life; meet my soul mate; finish school; get my life under control; reach my ideal body weight; get the recognition I deserve; send my children off to college; have a baby; find a new job;
have more time to lay golf; get a promotion have more sex; find my true love
am assured of my spouse’s success; have a fabulous new wardrobe; get out of debt.

Debbie (we’re close) says that what we’re seeking with all these things is a feeling, a feeling that won’t necessarily come with the goal. At some point in my life I’ve been waiting for almost every one of these (except the golf one). I’m still waiting for most of them. What does that say about the state of my happiness? How can I move forward wanting so much? Waiting for it? All of those things seem really reasonable to want: a great new job, true love, nice clothes.

I think the SHA lesson here is Sure go after them if you really want them. But don’t wait to be happy. Be happy now.

Self love (self acceptance, self worth, self esteem) is good for everything. Everything. You know the drill: if you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else or expect anyone to love you? If you spend all your time hating yourself, beating yourself up, you can’t possibly be thinking positive thoughts about anything else or doing anything positive.

I know some have trouble with this one. I have trouble with this one. How can I love myself when there are so many things about me that really need fixing? Seriously, am I just supposed to ignore the extra 100 pounds, the smoking, the delight in gossip, the lack of relationships, the list goes on. The hair, the nose, the teeth, the feet. The list goes on.

I think the idea of self love doesn’t as you to deny these things, it asks you to accept yourself as is, because as long as you’re dealing with something that is not (that does not exist), you can’t possibly be dealing with the issue at hand; you’re dealing with something non-existant. And what does that get you?

Does that make sense? What are your thoughts on Self Love?