These words will change your life for the better: listen to them.
"It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone," (especially yourself!)
The quoted part is from Alice Walker, author, poet and human extraordinaire. The parenthetical part is from me: author, poet and down-to-earth me.
Cherish could easily become an annoying-to-me word, like the word many others are right now. As it is I edited out this suggestion, which I will add back in now:
I mean really, truly, breathe these words deeply into your belly as you feel their meaning in your blood. Ready?
"It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone," (especially yourself!)
Please, before you start worrying about word meaning or this compared to that, stay present right here right now. Look at this definition:
a : to hold dear : feel or show affection for <cherished her friends> b : to keep or cultivate with care and affection : nurture <cherishes his marriage>
: to entertain or harbor in the mind deeply and resolutely <still cherishes that memory>
Here is the simple exercise to practice to begin changing your life today.
Right here, right now as you are reading, let’s integrate some of this “cherishing” so that your life WILL change and this will mean more to you than visiting a blog for three minutes and saying “Oh, that was interesting.”
Place your hand on your heart and breathe as if you were breathing into your belly. Open the center of your body and take a second breath.
On the third breath, invite this question to “ride your breath” as if your breath was a river:
“What changes will take place if I take cherishing actions toward myself?”
Allow that question to simply ride your breath in and out and become larger with each inhale as you read along. Don’t give that question any more attention, just put it in the back of your mind and keep your conscious thoughts here.
Let’s talk about “cherishing actions.”
This is when you do something that makes you or someone else feel cherished.
Remember when you were woo’ed (romanced) by someone you really liked? Perhaps that is happening for you right now or perhaps it was when you were a junior in high school and it has been twenty years yet you can still conjure that feeling in your gut of “cherishing” when he took off his jacket and put it over your shoulder, when your sorority sister gave you the exactly right birthday present when everyone else forgot, when your Mom came and cleaned your house when you had a bad stomach flu and were stressed out about not having time or energy and you didn’t even have to ask her.
These are cherishing actions.
What are the ways you feel cherished by others?
Mine include these: I love quality time doing the things I love with those I love.
Recently I had a huge communication breakdown with a friend. She couldn’t understand why I was so upset when she canceled a trip we were taking at the very last moment. After what felt like a ridiculous amount of texts back and forth, I said, “I have been looking forward to this for months because finally we were doing something that is important to me and I wanted to experience it WITH you because I love you and when you love your friends, you want them to experience the things you love with you.”
That declaration shifted everything.
I feel cherished when people spend time with me at art museums or poetry readings or sitting silently in quirky nature spots while I write or take photos and they do whatever art form they enjoy ~ without saying a word.
I feel cherished when people offer to go along but even more, I feel cherished when someone else makes the suggestion and all I have to do is show up.
There was a time when I literally got lost to what I loved. Maybe this is where you are today. Please, stay here and stick with this.
The idea of knowing what it was that made me feel cherished was as foreign as a language written in foreign letters not just foreign words.
That means feeling cherished was like me trying to figure out Chinese or Russian or Farsi.
Change happened when I started asking questions like these and opening myself to the responses before finally acting upon them as I am encouraging you to do so.
I will ask you to breathe your question again, let it ride your breath:
“What changes will take place if I take cherishing actions toward myself?”
Don't follow it yet, just allow yourself to ask the question and then let it go.
The first step toward positive change is to begin creating a map to help you get there. You need to know what cherishing actions are meaningful for you.
Some people think gift giving, for example, is a significant cherishing action. It may be for them, it isn’t so much for me. Thankfully we are all different.
It is time for you to begin building a list or a collage or a mind-map of what makes you feel cherished.
This may take several days to compile and you may continue to make discoveries for weeks or months.
Plato said, “The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
Do not turn away from this.
Begin it, now.
Create a list numbered from 1 – 21 and title it “I Feel Cherished When….”
It is best to make a paper list as well as a computer list. I don’t know about you, but some of my greatest laser insights arrive when I am driving.
When a new idea comes, pull over to note it. And do it – pull over and note it.
You may also open a document for free flow writing with “I feel cherished when…” as the opening prompt. Write for five minute chunks, several times a day over the next few days.
Perhaps you have more insights in conversations. Tell your friends you have been challenged to discover what makes you feel cherished. Start the discussion by asking your friends, “What makes you feel cherished?” You may even tweet the question or put it as a facebook status.
We’ll return to this on Monday. I’ll check in and ask you, “What makes you feel cherished?”
Whenever you feel yourself turning from the original question, put your hand on your heart and breathe deeply, allowing these questions to ride your breath as if your breath was a river and the question, a canoe:
“What changes will take place if I take cherishing actions toward myself?”
Breathe and respond to….
“I feel cherished when…”
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© 2011
Julie Jordan Scott
This is post 28 of 31 in July for the Ultimate Blog Challenge ~
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