A client of mine sent me this beautiful book as a gift, full of ‘gentle reminders’.
It reminded me of the kind of passionate, loving, and very very true messages I send to my clients after sessions where they pour out their hearts, sometimes for the first time.
Passionate messages, reminding them, you…
That your worth isn’t determined by what you do in a day, how you rank in your company’s metrics, or your investment profile, or your success by anyone else’s standards.
That you absolutely can and should celebrate your accomplishments because those mean something; they capture the intersection of your passion and willingness to try, your bravery, your creativity and your gifts, savvy, intuition, sweaty effort, grit, scrappiness.
Your choice to see yourself through a lens of light.
But that they are whole and cannot and should not be lessened by your neighbour’s successes or lack thereof. Or by the illusive next achievement. Or by the would have or could have or should haves.
They do not diminish on the days you and the world around you cannot see it straight or clear.
That you are never ever foolish to love.
No matter what.
That when someone cannot and does not take care of your heart, your love is not wasted.
It goes with you.
The investment you made in the first date.
In the text.
The patience.
The chances.
The twenty years of marriage.
The grace you gave…
Is collected in the vault of all things good and beautiful.
It is the stuff that ignites the love who can reciprocate, now and today.
It becomes your practice.
Your best game.
You certainly don’t get great at loving and sharing and collaborating and championing by closing your heart or erecting walls.
By shaming yourself.
It doesn’t even make for a great sojourn of the self.
A reminder that…
Sometimes the systems are broken.
The culture is toxic.
Falling apart.
You don’t want to take that on.
A heavy pile of sticks or bricks slung across your back.
Your heaviness serves no one or thing.
You want a passage through.
It’s okay to surrender.
A reminder that love does not teach pain, and pain does not teach love.
We aren’t expected to suffer in order to thrive.
When we thrive after suffering, that is the gift of healing not penance.
The voice that tells us we must suffer comes from fear.
The voice that tells us we must suffer isn’t the one to trust.
A reminder that connecting, sharing, opening, investing, risking, believing, forgiving, trusting, caring, trying, and trying to try are all rewarded.
Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.
Willingness is everything.
I have thousands upon thousands of these messages.
Thousands upon thousands of break throughs and triumphs and victories and healings, marriages gained and marriages saved, accomplishments and deep sighs and breaths out, feeling whole again and finding love again. Feeling SAFE within our own skin, life, world again.
One day I’ll collect them all into a little book.
But today, start here. With me.
Breathe in something joyful.
Let someone else be enough.
So you can be too.
Much love,
Erin