On Receiving Love, Honoring My Needs, and Learning Self-Compassion
Your family definitely have a way of loving you, of showing you how much they care about you, yes they might not love you, but very likely they do and they try their best to show it to you, with their concern, with their presence, with their unsolicited advice, or maybe with their awareness for not knowing how to connect with you. In my life I found so much love, not only from my family or my partners, but also from friends, students. But somehow I found myself begging for love, being the one that has to create the opportunities for it, I honestly want that us much as the next person. Maybe an easy answer will be to say Pedro you are just a giver, someone that just feels better when he is creating spaces for loving others. Somehow I have a belief that confirms that is the right thing to do, but not, I want a few lifting loving words, a huge surprise hug, a nice call from a friend I haven’t heard from in a while. I especially need time to remember how I can honestly feel love by myself and create time and space to take care of me.
I heard a story about this japanese zen garden, isolated stones scattered in this beautifully organised combed sand. Stones that represent different people, institutions or anything that apparently stands independent and isolated from the other stones. For a long time, like the guys in the stories, I felt like I was one of the stones, but in reality I have always been more alike with the sand, the one that connects the stones. I want to believe in something different but since I was little I have been like the sand. It has always been easy for me to connect to other people, to be the person that somehow can bridge not only people but institutions. I love that I have that skill set, but it is just now when I am understanding the possibilities for it. I want to learn how to comb the sand, I want to understand what I can do to communicate better and how to listen better. This is something that I normally do, I do it for work, and it is a pleasure for me. Of course the struggle is that I forget myself while I do that, so I need to find that space for reflection on how to remember that I sometimes need to be a stone.
I guess as a stone the point is finding sand I can lay on, sand that is combed for me, sand that hopefully enjoys being sand. I am so used to being the sand that I actually forgot that I was the stone, and quietly I have been strogling with that fact. I have zero training on asking for it, on communicating in a healthy way about this need for a hug, because I receive so many hugs but because I give them. In the last couple of months I have been in that space where I find myself wanting to be hugged, heard and loved, without me being the one that initiates these loving transactions. I am so grateful for all the friends that appear out of nowhere with a call of support, or simply asking for help, because I found loving being given the opportunity to help another person. Thanks to them I realise that I want more of that in my life, more episodes of being surrounded by people that are there for you and make you accountable, that are actively looking for your presence. Friends, groups of people that you want in your life, I am grateful and excited to keep opening myself to learning to find love in that way. Of course there are people that have always been there, some of them are welcome, some of them are just there, it is always my responsibility to accept them as part of my life.
Loving myself has never been something I naturally do. I kind of bark my way into creating space for myself, asking for permission, or somehow needing to justify my actions to whoever. I am not talking about communicating it, I am talking about thinking that I need permission to love myself, to do what I want to do, to understand that being myself won’t be accepted by everyone, but I still have to do it. I am learning better and better ways to cultivate self love, unapologetic self love. Understanding that I am not the center of the universe is very helpful, understanding that my own needs matter. The world is huge so if I can concentrate on this moment here and now I will get a bit more of my own life. There are a lot of expectations on a lot of the things I do, and I do them out of habit, I just do them because. I have gotten better these days on how to communicate a few things, but I am still super scared of what you will say if you read these words. I saw a video of a gorgeous japanese dancer having fun with a beautiful son, a choreography that violated a few “RULES” about how to dance the styles. I have stopped myself from enjoying the dance because I understand a bit more, but then I miss the point of enjoyment, for what people could say, and of course neither her or I mean any disrespect to the orishas, we both just want to dance and enjoy what we do. Ignorance is bliss but I believe that I should dance more, knowing that my intentions are to create, share and enjoy my culture using the movements that feel good to me. I want the courage to day by day dance the steps that I found right
Yes, I am grateful for all the loving people in my life, I am grateful for all the people away from me, I am grateful for being able to ask for love if I need it. I have a long way to go, and I want to keep trying. Thank you Pedro for writing and thank you for reading. My words are hopefully a space for us to connect with the world around us.
Gracias for reading.