Namaste

I started a post a couple of weeks ago that I never completed.  Actually, I only picked the image I wanted to use and then an idea never formed for the post.  So, that picture and post will have to wait.

It's sunny out today but windy.  The weather is shifting and I'm so excited for change, Spring, something new.  There's something new and big coming this year and it feels good. 

Nevertheless, things have been difficult lately.  A week into March and the tone has been set as 'exhausted.'  Tired of old patterns, tired of hard unfulfilling work, tired of not following my heart, tired of ignoring myself and allowing  myself to be ignored.  Advocacy for one's self is so often disregarded.  Not just with me.  I watch people let themselves be silenced in an effort not to "stir up shit."  I do it.  I've spent years preferring to 'get along' instead of speaking up and letting people see the real me with real needs and real expectations.  I've gotten into a pretty major habit of relating to the world as a victim and reacting out of some place of misguided self-defense and preservation.  Not that it hasn't served me but I'm seeing that there are more healthful ways of relating to my surroundings and the people in my reality.

 So, this goes hand in hand with choice.  I/You can make a choice in every situation that arises.  We can choose to be bitter or look at the positive.  We can choose to stay or choose to leave.  Choose to vocalize a need or choose to keep it silent (and then choose to be okay with that choice or to be resentful).  I'm struggling with this because it's so much easier to choose to not say a word and then to be angry about everything later on, to place blame unfairly, to experience life as a victim with out any power or fault. 

We should all know our self worth.  I'm reminded of the greeting Namaste.  It's a Sanskrit word used as a greeting in India and also used in the Yoga communities around the world.  Basically, at it's most literal it means "to bow to you."  Expounding on that, there are several ways that people explain the meaning of the word but the version I've heard that I like the most is that the divine in me recognizes (and bows to) the divine in you. 

Everyone is divine and comes from divinity.  Everyone has worth.  Everyone has an aspect of them that is whole, good, filled with light.  Today, for me, that means the right and the duty to honor that in myself and in others.  To advocate for myself and to listen to others as they too express their needs.  To meet people in their needs as I've had people recently meet mine.  To acknowledge that without putting it forth no one can know what it is I need just as I cannot know what other people need if they haven't expressed it to me. 

This also reminds me of my friend's blog post on a song called Timshel (Timshel means Thou Mayest in Hebrew) and goes back to ideas of choice and how choice plays into our divinity.  You can read her blog post and the song lyrics here.


Namaste.