Welcome back!

Yesterday’s story about the mermaid or the whale was especially pithy I thought.  Can you imagine in your wildest dreams of actually choosing to be a whale?

What I loved about the story is that the writer used her powers of deductive reasoning to cull out all of the good inherent to being a whale, and I believe that this is the secret for every one of us.

In my experience, every one of us thinks he or she has “one thing wrong” and that this one flaw is devastating.  Fat people think it’s their fat.  Poor people think it’s their poverty.  And on and on.

It’s never about the one thing wrong:  it’s about thinking that the supposed one thing wrong it is.  It never is.  I’ve had people tell me all my life “I never see you as fat.”  But I saw me as fat.  So who was right and who was wrong?  I was wrong for much of my life.

The better idea is to focus on the inventory of the things in your life that are right and hold your focus there.  Do you know what is good about you? If  you get busy and discover that your one best forté is writing, for example, and you work to foster writing skills, you’ll become so successful in writing that you won’t care about your supposed “one thing wrong.”

Let’s all be whales.

Love,

Pat

Have Yourself a Merry Little Picnic

Has summertime shown up at your house yet? This is the time I used to sweat until I learned to love and accept myself.  I’ve always run toward “hot” versus cold.  I’m not one of those women who puts on and takes off layers of clothes.  I wear cotton year round because it’s more comfortable and cooler.  Yes, short-sleeved cotton in the wintertime.  I do own sweaters but seldom wear them.

I once thought that because I was a large woman, I was not entitled to dress coolly because my bat wings might hang out, or because my thighs jiggle too much.  One day when it was very hot and the humidity factor was quite high, I had taken a shower and in order to dry off, I just laid down in my bed under the fan.  I began to think about comfort, because that was a very comfortable feeling I was experiencing.  I allowed myself to drift into the depths of that comfort, and I asked myself “Okay, here you are, a fat woman.  Would you feel any differently right now if you weighed 100 pounds less?”  My answer was “No, I wouldn’t.”

That was when I began to reason about being comfortable:  Does comfortable only come to the thin?  Is comfortable only for those who don’t obsess about the size of their bodies?  Can comfortable be enjoyed by the corpulently obese?  If the answer to that last one is “Yes” what permits the enjoyment of being comfortable?  Does it have a link to size at all?

I decided that “comfortable” and “the current weight” has no links except the links that I may have arbitrarily assigned to them, and that if I assigned them, I could also dissolve them.  So I decided right then and there that regardless of what that big mouthed scale of mine spit back at me, I was going to permit myself to feel comfortable no matter what.

I wear a bathing suit to the beach.  I wear sleeveless sun dresses.  I wear shorts.  I feel comfortable. Do I get looks?  Possibly.  I wouldn’t know because I no longer look for the scorn of others.  I’m focused on my own comfort.  I deserve it.  I enjoy it.  I think I’ll repeat it frequently. This kind of decision is part and parcel of the arena called spiritual healing.  Perhaps you’ll consider this healing for yourself this summer. You’re definitely good enough to deserve it.

Love,

Pat

Last night, I taught a teleclass about Individuality.  I adore the concept of Individuality because it truly bores in on the innermost aspect of you - the core of who you really are.  Whenever I let myself go there and think about that, I always get a bit misty eyed over the beauty that is intrinsic to that topic.

Role Reversal

I remember holding the daddy in that picture and looking at him, my first son, with the same misty eyed majesty that I experience when I think about Individuality.  This is a picture of Thad and his son, Hieronymous.  (Seth, dude,  you too.)  Whenever I looked at either of my babies, all I could see was their perfection, their sweetness, the joy I had about their very Be-ing, and how much they had to look forward to beyond that point.

Were you adulated and respected and loved like that?  Yes?  Good!  No? Then it’s time for you to learn how to love and adulate and respect your very own self.  Times a’wastin, woman!

Think about your own Individuality.  Wrapped up in there is the fact that you are a mental, thinking unit.  And wrapped up in there is the fact that from the beginning (I spit on the concept of Original Sin!) you were goodness itself.  All that in one wee bairn.

So few of us knew that along the way.  Well, there is no time like the present to stand in front of a mirror, look deeply into your own eyes, and say “I love you.  You’re good.  You can think, so you must be Mind. I think you’re perfect.”  Notice I didn’t say ….perfect just as soon as you lose that weight? Oh no!  Perfect right now.  Wrap your arms around yourself, look back into your eyes, and repeat again “I love you.  You’re good. I think you’re perfect right now as is.”

The first time I did that, my knees gave out from beneath me and as is my wont, I got sweaty eyeballs.

So, who’s in there??????  Huh?????

Love ya,

Pat