I’m listening to Taraji P. Henson’s memoir “Around the Way Girl.”
As I was driving to get coffee this morning, I listened to Taraji make a point that made me pause, rewind, and listen again:
“Even and especially when you feel helpless, it’s your ability to be seen and heard that gives you power where you feel you have none. Even in the darkest places you exist.”
For context, she was absolutely speaking about the experience of poverty and people needing to OWN themselves even in the hardest of circumstances.
It applies to you, too, no matter your circumstances.
The question hit me in my heart: WHAT WOULD LOVE DO?
“Even and especially when you feel helpless, it’s your ability to be seen and heard that gives you power where you feel you have none. Even in the darkest places you exist.”
The idea of making yourself SEEN and HEARD…even (especially) when you don’t feel you have power in a situation. THAT is SELF-LOVE.
What would LOVE do?
Love would accommodate.
Love would share.
Love would speak up.
Love would make a request.
Love would listen.
LOVE would get into ACTION.
Now, I know that some people have experienced things that were cloaked under the heading of LOVE…but it wasn’t actually LOVE.
It was control.
It was judgmental.
It was punitive.
It was cruel.
It was traumatic.
It was cold.
“Even and especially when you feel helpless, it’s your ability to be seen and heard that gives you power where you feel you have none. Even in the darkest places you exist.”
My invitation to you is to REDEFINE what LOVE means to you. Make up your own definition. What do you want love to feel like? Taste like? Sound like? Look like? Act like?
Figure it out for yourself and put it into action.
And – here’s the most important part…
SHOWER YOURSELF with all that love first. Get your fingers all pruny with it as you bathe yourself in deep, warm, caring LOVE for yourself.
All your internal parts, all the internal paths – the light ones AND the dark ones. Relax there, for that is the invitation that true love offers.
Only then do you turn and share that love with the world. THAT is what affects change. Change yourself. Fall in love with yourself. FIRST.
THEN do as Martha Postlethwaite advises in her poem “Clearing”
Do not try to serve
the whole world
or do anything grandiose.
Instead, create
a clearing
in the dense forest
of your life
and wait there patiently,
until the song
that is yours alone to sing
falls into your open cupped hands
and you recognize and greet it.
Only then will you know
how to give yourself
to the world
so worthy of rescue.
Need some help with this? PM me and let’s chat.
Warmly,
Angie