I want my life to feel like :: organic cotton everything, colors so vibrant it’s almost as if you could taste them, the perfect weight of a down comforter.
The slow, casual stroll through the grocery story, popping things in my cart as they appeal to me.
The preparing of the brussels sprouts for a Sunday dinner. Praying as I chop.
The lusty gaze around a room brimming with everything exactly as I like it, as I designed it, comprised by items of careful selection.
The much-too-long outdoor shower, mesmerized by the woods surrounding me and one cautious eye on the wasp building it’s nest next to my conditioner.
The fevered typing of a 4am idea – where suddenly everything is clear and I don’t have a moment to waste.
The everyday celebrations. The ordinary moments where you give thanks for what you have by enjoying them profusely.
The way that we can choose to plug back into our lives, even when everything feels like it’s spinning out of control and we might get gobbled up whole by the sheer multitude of our to-do lists.
I have been moving very slowly.
So slowly that I’ve been wondering if I might disappear completely or melt into the sidewalk.
I’ve been feeling that panic rising like a tidal wave – you have to do something or you will not be anything – where my worth is handcuffed to my ability to produce.
I’ve been moving slowly, but in this tender time, I have noticed the tidal wave of yearning that I’ve carefully ignored by winding myself up with a cup of coffee and setting myself to a task.
A hunger for the soft time. The unstructured time. The creative time.
A desire to accumulate things that are just right – and release everything that is not.
A connection with the part of myself that isn’t worried about who’s going to run that errand or map out the next six months.
The part that wants to dress up. Take chances.
Revel in my own vulnerability.
This is about intrinsic motivation – about working when you are able and forgiving yourself when you aren’t.
It is about granting yourself huge permission, a thousand times a day. Write your permission on your hands. Tattoo it on your body. Carry it with you. Cultivate an altar in it’s honor.
The theme of my summer is celebration.
But, truly it’s about giving yourself permission to celebrate. Permission to dig in. Permission to love your life, unabashedly.
Beautiful, Mara!
I love this.
Giving myself permission to be exactly who I am and do what I want to do with my life has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I didn’t even realize until recently that I HAD the freedom for these things.
All I could see was: I need to get out of debt. I need to lose weight. I need to be stronger in my Christian faith. I need to travel. I need to have a job (even if its sole purpose for me is to help me pay the bills). I need to be a loving girlfriend at all times.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
But then I listened to this message about matching your passion and purpose by a pastor named Lou Giglio, and he said something along the lines, “You have the freedom to pursue your passions.”
I don’t know why this was such a lightning bolt moment for me, but it struck me hard.
I have the freedom to pursue my passions?
But what about all of my responsibilities?
What about this weight I feel I need to lose?
Don’t I have better things to do?
BUT YES, I have the freedom to pursue my passions, find my purpose, love myself JUST AS I FREAKING AM, and now I am giving myself permission.
And this week, I’ve been at rest. Once I decided my motivation to exercise was no longer weight loss, I gave myself a chance to rest. Now I am giving myself permission to work out, however I see fit, because it helps me feel my best, but to also listen to my body when it tells me I need to rest. (No more “pushing through it” so I can burn however many calories I need to burn for the day.)
And I’ve been writing, which is my passion. I am finally giving myself permission to own my passions and to dive deeply into them. To still have my responsibilities but to not make them my number 1 priority anymore.
So thank you for this, for further concreting that I am on the right path. 🙂