Dear Wildflowers,
“I love you. I am listening”
When I got really serious about my recovery from my eating disorder, one of my most prominent tools was meditation. I had been practicing and teaching yoga for a long time at that point and I had certainly meditated before, but it wasn’t a consistent practice. I remember a very specific day when I said out loud “I want to be someone who meditates”.
The truth is, it’s not just that I wanted it, but I needed it. I had started to realize that if I was going to actually be able to let go of my eating disorder and the behaviors that came with it, I was going to have to learn how to sit with my emotions and myself in a way that I hadn’t done before.
I started on the Insight Timer app and began trying out different teachers. One morning I stumbled upon a meditation by
who also happens to be a fellow substacker. Her poetic words set to music brought me to tears almost every time. One meditation in particular was entitled “I love you. I am listening”. The premise of the meditation is to offer these words to ourself, something that many of us, I truly believe, would offer to anyone else in our lives whom we care for.I have spent many a meditation with own hands pressed to heart, saying exactly these words to myself. What happens each time is a wave of relief that allows me to opening and readily accept whatever it is that needs to be seen, heard and felt that day. It’s not always pretty or wrapped in a neat bow, but it is the honesty of it all that allows me to find my way through, rather than all the time and energy I used to spend trying so hard not to even acknowledge what was there.
Now when I teach meditation, especially in recovery spaces, I let my students know that it’s ok to walk away from a practice not feeling a specific way. Too often mindfulness practices get wrapped in a promise that you will walk away feeling “calm” or “zen” when in reality, none of that can be guaranteed. It’s a nice selling point but in reality, how you walk away feeling is not the point of meditation. The entire reason, I believe, that we learn this skill of sitting with ourselves isn’t to manipulate ourselves into feeling any way in particular, but rather free ourselves up from thinking that any way we do feel is wrong. It also allows us to sit with and have our feelings, while strengthening the understanding with ourselves that our feelings are only one part of a bigger landscape. We aren’t what we feel the same way that we aren’t the eating disorder. None of it has to be our identity the same way that when your child or your partner or your best friend come to you while struggling, you don’t wrap them in the struggle as if it’s who they are, but rather wrap them in love because you know who they are beyond what they are going through.
You, dear Wildflower, are the same. You are not your struggles, your hard feelings or even your good feelings. You are a human being who deserves to be loved and be heard, by all people, but especially by yourself.
“I love you. I am listening”. Try it this week. Take a moment, close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and place your hands warmly over your heart. Say these words out loud, but to yourself. Let what comes, come. Listen without judgement. Repeat and repeat and repeat. You are so worthy of this kind of care and action.
If you ever wish to meditate with me, you can find me on Insight Timer where I have lots of meditations and will continue to add more.
For my clients, here are your practices and tools for this week: