Being with myself has gotten better and better over time. I also wonder if it is one of those things that is simply going back to the way it used to be when I was a child.

I really wish I could remember more of my childhood. I have been asking my body to reveal memories to me.

I was reminded of a memory yesterday. It was something I had forgotten about. I told my partner about it and she reminded me that I already told her this story. She said, ‘you don’t remember telling me?’

I didn’t.

It was a reminder of how much I am being protected by my own self. This particular memory was something that I feel was very upsetting to me. The feeling I remembered when it came back to me was extreme embarrassment, to the point of feeling mortified.

There are some things that I do remember which are extremely shameful and upsetting for me. It feels like those memories are coming back to me first. I can’t help but wonder about the happy memories.

What feels sad for me is that as I am contemplating this time of my life, from the ages of 8-14, I realize how much extreme change happened in that time and what I felt about it all.

I felt I was being discarded. I was seeking a love that felt stable and where I felt recognized. In that same period of time, from 8-14, is when I fell even more in love with dance. It is when I started Irish Dancing. This was the art form that carried me all the way through my mid-twenties.

I needed to let it go so many times. And I did in some ways. Break the bond with it. I built up a lot of bitterness and resentment over things that happened in the studio. How I was treated, how I felt about myself and my dancing, how much I felt I had to prove myself. How competing was really not about my joy and bliss. It became about proving myself. And how obvious it was, in my dancing and my results, when I was able to dance from my joy and bliss.

Completely obvious. Looking back, even more obvious. I ache over some of the things that happened. What was it that protected me? Pure hunger to prove myself. That’s what it feels like.

I had so many belly aches over it. Sometimes heart palpitations. Stuff was going on for sure. I felt such a hunger to be loved that I needed to do whatever I could to get the love. I wasn’t getting it where I used to get it so I had to get it in dance. By the end of that chunk of time, I had lost the love. Through out that chunk of time, I lost a source of the love.

But also in that chunk of time I gained something that I loved which provided resource to me.

I am learning a lot about myself from reflecting gently on this time of my life. What I want to embody is the knowing that… how do I put these words… just that I know everyone on this earth who has lived to be older than 14 means that they had a time in their life from 8-14 and maybe some of these people, including my loved ones, had sensitive times then too. Maybe also traumatizing times or sad times and I hope also happy times.

I want to embody this knowing because I really feel it will allow me to be more compassionate with others. More trusting of life and more loving.

Part of me feels like I am missing that piece. But what I am realizing is that I was ignoring the piece that wants me to be with that time in my life, those parts of myself.

I was bypassing all of that in order to imagine how others must feel. But then who was going to do that for me?

And when people didn’t, especially friends, family, lovers, when they didn’t do that for me… imagine how I was going to feel and take that into consideration, validate that…I was very upset.

I am still in the middle of this. I could actually take those last few paragraphs and rewrite them in the present tense too.

So it’s past and present for me. I love that the more I am acknowledging myself, the less I feel that I need that from others. And the more I am expanding towards that embodied knowing of us all sharing parts of the journey that make us human.

So every 8 year old little spirit inside of grown bodies can feel the ripple effect of my love as I love on my little 8 year old spirit inside.

That’s what I imagine anyway and that feels lovely to think about.

Alright that’s all for now.