See that woman in that photo? My little mom. She has (and still does) cared for me in ways that I can’t even comprehend. But I can feel them and I know who I am today in large part because of her.

I received an open letter recently. In it I read the words – take care of yourself. Ugh. Hmph. Bleugh. Blah. Wah.

Well do you ever just feel like… what’s the point? Why am I doing all of this? Am I torturing myself? Should I really have to try this hard? If I’m trying is it working? If I don’t try what happens? Can I trust?

How do I know if I can trust? What does all of this even mean? What am I supposed to be doing with myself? Will I ever feel better? When will the pain go away? Why does it hurt so much sometimes? What do we do with the thoughts that linger?

Why don’t I want to talk to anyone? Why is it that I can’t accept when people do nice things for me? What do I do with that? Why am I punishing myself? Why can’t I just listen and take it all in? Why do I have to learn the hard way?

Why does it hurt so much? Why does it actually physically hurt to feel emotional pain? What does it feel like to know the other side of this hurt?

Yesterday I had gone about an hour without crying at the most. But when it hits me as hard as it does, I’m still here. So I have survived. I once said to a friend- the worst that happens is that we survive and the best that happens is we thrive.

I JUST WANT TO GIVE IN. So today I said no. No more. I am done. I have tried and things have blown up in my face.

You wanna know how I’m going to do it? The Power of Now. I want to share an experience I had this afternoon:

I bought the book, The Power of Now, last week and today I started reading it. I was tired, so so tired. Even though for the past few nights I have been sleeping through the night which is brilliant. (Huge improvement for me really.) So I started to read it and there are moments in the book where he puts up a symbol that means pause. So I decided to just read it and do exactly what it says. I read, I trusted, I paused. I was so comfortable in my princess bed, with my gorgeous flowers across from me. During those pauses – I simply just lied there and looked at them. They made me so happy. I smiled. I rested and I had zero thoughts really.

Then I had this feeling and it overcame me. My body was so warm and just filled with love. My pulse was so strong that I could see it beating and moving the blanket and the phone on top of me. I just had to take it all in. It felt like learning to love myself for just a few moments, like being my own companion ya know? I did this for about a half an hour until I fell asleep, to the sound of the meditation song called Beating Heart. I woke up about 2 hours later and I haven’t really had a thought since. Until I decided to share. I am writing to get the words out so that I can go back to the space between them.

I will be sure to keep you updated on my experience with this beautiful book. I think it will help me to take care of myself. Just like the way little mom always takes care of little b.

Talk soon

B-