I’m reimagining a better version of what a lover feels like. I’m walking away from what feels familiar and safe. I’m listening to what my soul is crying out for.
How I yearn to show up in the world might not always be accepted and celebrated. But that’s okay because the person who needs to accept and celebrate my relationships is me.
I’m pouring myself into the people I’m choosing to be my people. No longer holding out or resenting those who don’t serve me.
I’m doing things differently because I choose to and that excites me!
This is what I’m noticing when I move my body outside. Sharing the beauty in decay, something I used to shield myself from out of fear. But now I appreciate the natural cycle of things. From death there comes rebirth. A renaissance.
Not sure why or how but I went with it. It got me outside the house into the sun. A cold day but we had the light.
The light pulled me around the park, as I walked ran walked. Second run of the week. So what if I took an extra day between each run to recover. I got back out and I’m grateful.
My mood has remained up as the day has gone on. And I say I don’t know why but I think I do.
I think because I’m building up the trust I have in myself is the thing. Because I’m consistently showing up for myself with my morning routine. I’m showering myself with care and attention. And I’m feeling the benefit of it, through waking up with a smile of my self.
It’s a circle – I give into my pot in order to receive.
“He knew exactly what she meant: to get to a place where you could love anything you chose — not to need permission for desire — well now, that was freedom.”
As we near the end of June, I near the end of my current visual journal. This beauty has seen me through some ups and downs these past two months, as I’ve navigated major life changes and shifts.
Being able to keep coming back to the page in order to work out my shit, my internal shit, before I meet all the external shit is a gift. Is a massive gift I take for myself in the name of self-care.
Before visual journaling came along, I did keep a journal but it was maybe a lined notebook sometimes plain paper and pen. Simple and effective and got me through a lot of life’s changes.
But when 2015 came along and my life changed forever, words on the plain page would never be enough again. Could never be enough to express all the turbulence and upheavals within my life. I needed more and I also needed to feel safe.
So paints and images and quotes and collage and photography and text came together, merged and played off of one another to provide the time and space and safety I needed to have an ongoing, developing and becoming conversation with myself.
I feel blessed now to know I get to do this / {BE} this daily. I give myself the opportunity to get off this merry-go-round of life and take deeper breaths, while being in communion with myself, checking in on myself, making sure I’m okay and if not what I need to do in order to get back to being okay. But all in good time and a few visual journal spreads later.
This is one of my self-care practices which I am truly grateful for.
I’ll be sharing some more spreads, images and reflections on this process over the summer as this practice is multifaceted in terms of all the goodness of offers me. I gain insight, clarity and love in the present moment of the practice. But I also gain a lot of joy in the looking back over pages, reliving the feelings within my body of the practice. I also gain pleasure from sharing this practice with others.
When I consider where I was this time last year, I was knee deep in hospital visits and worry. My daughter was in hospital fighting an unknown infection, not getting any better. The hospital had reintroduced one parent one patient rule. I thought it best for her father to stay in hospital with her instead of me. I wasn’t coping well within a system set up to ignore the Black body.
I also wasn’t prepared to handle her father’s anxieties and worries if he wasn’t by her side. It also made sense as I had the car so I could come and go and bring in what was needed. Everything was centred towards my daughter getting better. It was like time stood still and all other things paled into insignificance. It helped me sort out my priorities.
Thinking about where I want to be a year from now, I want to be in a better relationship with my body. Yes, lost weight but more so made peace with her. I want to be knee deep in self-love and no longer considering or settling for being second best. I’ll no longer be satisfied with accepting someone else’s scraps. I know my worth and do not accept anything less
I’m in a state of constantly becoming and at the heart of this journey is my own healing and well-being. I’ve got a toolkit of practices which I use to support my health and well-being and protect my mental and emotional health also.
I might be dating and I might not. But that isn’t my life or will be taking over my life. I am my life and what I choose to be and do is my life.
A year from now, I’ve also completed a major writing project which I’m super proud of. I’m ready to launch it into the world and accept the increased exposure it will bring. Good or bad. Because I am in a secure, loving and trustful relationship with myself.
This space is to remember the losses, the challenges and struggles of 2022. This is the space to let go and surrender to what has gone, goodbye and what is here now.
The releasing is a practice, a continuing practice, but I have to start somewhere.
2022 saw me release my fantasy of marriage. Holding onto the dreams and hopes of that relationship. The certainty of marriage and that promises of growing old with someone I loved; I let go of. What is the point of pining after something that was never going to happen and missing out on the life I have now? The life I’m creating for myself, day by day, money by moment.
I’m letting go of my need for control. Micro-managing everybody and every situation is tiring and no longer needed. I’m ready to embrace the unknown.
Lensa AI
I release my need and desire for love from others, love from someone else because I know the love I need has to come from myself, first and foremost.
And I release all those secrets and lies that I’ve been holding onto as a means of control and as a means of protection. I lay down my guard, opening as I am ready to listen and learn.
Living Wild Studios 