The big stuff of love starts with ‘being okay’
Love is in the air!
And before you smack me in the jaw for starting this note with a cliche, I don’t mean the overpriced chocolates and wilted roses.
I mean – what makes you feel that quiet, deep, still, unshakeable love-peace where you can finally let go of that tight breath you didn’t know you were holding and say:
‘This is okay. This. Right here.’
Many years ago, when I felt my most lost, I asked my closest soul-friend if she’d noticed that I had ‘become different’.
She said, yes. That I’d become only a shadow of myself, whatever light there was dimmed down to almost nothing.
She said:
the situations and relationships and places that are truly good for you are what help you to be more of yourself
they increase all the parts of you that are light and joyful
they allow space for all the things you love and that you’re passionate about.
They don’t dim you, shrink you, quieten you down. They don’t make you less of you.
I was in such a bad place that I didn’t even know what that would look like. I couldn’t even remember what lit me up or made me feel joyful.
Some of you reading this today may be feeling this same thing… or at least have met, at some time, that sinkhole-feeling of shrinking and despair. No silver linings or lights at the ends of tunnels.
That’s okay – I’m not here to tell you to ‘just be happy’ and love it all up.
Today, and on all the hard, rough, messy, days, just look for what feels okay.
Where do you feel you can breathe out, let go a little, and say, ‘This is okay. I feel okay’?
(Okay is more than just ‘okay’. It can be a small but much-needed instance of stillness, steadiness, ease, quiet, balance, acceptance, relief, hope, grace, assurance, a calm settling)
All the big stuff of love and other huge feelings start with just being okay.
So start there, with the ‘baseline you’ that feels okay.
And when you’re ready, ask: what can you do to make more of that, more of that baseline you?
Each moment, each day, what one thing can you do to give yourself more of that? To be more okay?
Or, what one tiny-big thing can you release each day that’s getting in the way of feeling okay?
Slowly, slowly, with all the grace you can give yourself, learn and relearn the new, old, big, little things that you find pleasure in, that you can relax into, that give you butterflies and make your heart jiggle (again).
It’s slow going. But that ride of finding the okays – and then the more-than-okays and eventually, the deep-down-loves – is delicious.
It’s what will bring you closer to those things that feel light and joyful (again), that will help you recognise that yes! this is what you want more of
this is what you want to love and feel all the good feelings for
this is what will make you more of you.
Start with okay.
Okay is good.
Okay is more than enough.
Okay is where all love starts.
Okay?
