Five is the number of my life path. It's Wednesday lovers, let's write it.
As I sit here, I play Spotless Mind by Jhene Aiko on repeat... she's a wanderer... I'm a wanderer... I'm a wonderer, baby...
I'm learning so much about myself in Japan. Couple things I want to highlight this week, well five... and I'll keep it brief, fr this time lol.
Isolation is the near enemy of solitude. Brené Brown describes a near enemy in her book Atlas Of the Heart as: "an emotion or trait masquerading as a virtue." It's easy to think if you're isolating yourself, which means cutting yourself off (literally disconnecting) and ONLY listening to your voice and thoughts that you're in solitude doing you. No. Isolation is quite lonely and a bit sad, honestly. Solitude is the art/state of BEING alone, learning and PRIORITIZING your voice. Remember lover, you're BIOLOGICALLY WIRED for connection. Boundaried connection. I'm towing the line here in Nihon and it is challenging. Ask yourself, do you confuse the two? If so, do you do so intentionally? Is fear leading here? Asking for a friend..... plot twist, you're the friend.
I'm currently reading the Seven Principles for Making a Marriage Work... deep stuff lovers, d e e p stuff. And it's stuff that can be applied to all love relationships, with an emphasis on prioritizing your romantic partnership because it need be based in friendship. A profound nugget I'll offer for you to ponder on not only for your romantic or platonic relationships, but the relationship with yourself and all the versions of you ranging from inner child, to the version you have not become yet: " And if you don't really know someone, how can you truly love them? No wonder the biblical term for sexual love is to 'know'." Do you know yourself? I'm learning that intuitively yes I know myself well, but I hadn't been giving myself the attention and time required to know myself intimately. Do you know yourself well? Do you love yourself well? Explore here.
Emotional Change is slow... that's one from our therapist... and honestly change in general is slow.. I've added ( and attached to my desk for my own sanity): not only is it this way for everyone Jasmin, it is OKAY. Are you too focused on speed versus direction? It's okay, that's the heteropatriarchal capitalistic insert-any-other-system-you-can-think-of-here that we live in... bow out gracefully, rest in the slow, lover. In a society so fueled by speed, it's a radical thing to slow it down and move, or be still, with intention.
I forgive myself, therefore I am free. That's the one. repeat it, let it permeate your heart, and allow it to stay. (forgiveness AND freedom)
Desirable Difficulty. Shit be hard, life be hard, and I, we all, have an innate desire to be here. I truly believe that. If that feeling is unfamiliar to you, I understand and there is no judgement lover... your faith in you only need to be the size of the smallest seed on planet Earth. "My faith can keep me afloat." is written on my wall. That's an original from my sister Robin Bobo. The world can feel like an all consuming sea, allow yourself to float in faith.
Week five and my nervous system, the home that is my body where my heart truly is at present..in real time for the first time in a long time is keenly aware, we are not on vacation. We are home-- inside all of our former, present, and future selves... and although I am a afraid, WE are more grateful and excited that home, our heart, our body, our connection, each version to connected to each version, still exists. Fear does not equal danger... that's a Sonya Renee Taylor nugget. Can ya tell mama's reading? Today was a hard day, and I choose to allow such a thing to be true, and to still be grateful to be home. Sometimes home is hard, sometimes it takes time to get familiar again... I keep repeating "before I formed you in your mother's womb, I knew you."
Here's to returning to you, without casting any of the versions out or down that may have "delayed" your journey in getting there; but instead showing each version an immense amount of love, welcome, forgiveness, and freedom.
With all of my love, until next time,
Mrs. Jasmin Dominique Taylor
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