Dear Wildflowers,
Happy Sunday Eve. I realized this morning that a few days ago was World Poetry Day. Do you like poetry? It is one of my favorite things. Not that I am an expert in any way. I don’t always know what a poem is meaning to say. I just know when I like it.
I think one of my favorite things about poetry is how all it really is, is an organization of different words, put together in a way that makes us feel something. I think that’s pretty miraculous. I also love how when we read or listen to poetry, it makes us pay attention to words in a way that we often don’t in every day life. Sometimes I wonder what if we paid as much attention to the words we spoke as when we are listening to a poem? Would we speak them the same way? Would we choose the same words or combination of words?
It’s a kind of meditation really, to listen to the words we use and the meaning behind them. I know I risk sounding like a cliche when I say this, but the power that our words have is really quite astonishing. We can build someone up in an instant or tear them down just as quickly. We can do it to ourselves too.
Recovery requires us to listen in this way. It requires us to hear what we are saying to ourselves and ask the question “are these words worthwhile?”, “how are they making me feel?”, “is this how I wish to speak to myself forever?”
Dear Wildflowers, I urge you to listen to the words you use with yourself this week. Are you organizing them in a way that is helpful? If not, what would you like to say instead? It’s ok to practice how you wish to speak to yourself, even when the rest of you isn’t on board yet. In fact, that may be exactly what poetry is; a way to practice listening, speaking and feeling from words the way we wish to.
For inspiration, I share with you some poems to spend some time with. I’ve recorded them for you in case you would rather listen:
The Ocean You - by Nikita Gill
Everytime you think you are broken,
know this: you are never really breaking.
No one can break an ocean,
darling, all you are doing,
is breaking the glass that is holding you back,
diving deeper into your own depths,
discovering yourself in pockets
of the most somber waves,
rebuilding your heart with coral,
with seaweed, with moon colored sand dust.
So stop trying to hold yourself back inside that glass,
it was never meant to hold you.
Instead, break it,
shatter it into a thousand pieces…
and become who you were always meant to be,
an ocean, proud and whole.
Today I asked my body what she needed - by Hollie Holden
Today I asked my body what she needed,
Which is a big deal
Considering my journey of
Not Really Asking That Much.
I thought she might need more water.
Or protein.
Or greens.
Or yoga.
Or supplements.
Or movement.
But as I stood in the shower
Reflecting on her stretch marks,
Her roundness where I would like flatness,
Her softness where I would like firmness,
All those conditioned wishes
That form a bundle of
Never-Quite-Right-Ness,
She whispered very gently:
Could you just love me like this?
Untethered - by Sara Packard
I sit and listen to the story I have so carefully woven all these years. Bits and pieces of experiences past, so perfectly backing up the perception of “not enough”.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath and ask, “but is this true?”
Deep within me a small and quiet voice whispers “no”.
The longer I sit, the longer I listen, the louder it becomes. Slowly it takes over the boom of the past and I am here now, present in a new truth.
The realization that the old, tired story no longer fits, I slip it off, relieved of the discomfort and constant effort of wearing it for so long. The heaviness lifts.
I am free. I am untethered. A new story in the making.
Or perhaps, even better, no story at all.
For my clients…