Self Love Is The Greatest Love

 

 

 

“Bless the poets, the workers for justice, the dancers of ceremony, the singers of heartache, the visionaries, all makers and carriers of fresh meaning—We will all make it through, despite politics and wars, despite failures and misunderstandings. There is only love.”
― Joy Harjo, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems

As I have said before, you cannot love anyone or anything else if you do not love yourself first.  We all have that spark of creation in us.  How incredible is that?  How much do we honor that?

We have that pure, innocent, soulful little soul within us; our “Inner Child”, some call it.  She can be a bit raggedy, and wounded, but she is soul that heals from moment to moment from being down here on earth.  Sometimes she needs nurturing and she craves for us to love her, to listen to her, that a wounded abandoned child would.  She is our Divine Feminine. 

When she is nurtured, she nurtures us back.  She carries within her, all our feminine ancestors and their knowledge and purpose and love.  She is raw and instinctual.  She was birthed with us, a strong filament of connectedness to the All, into this hard world, to keep our soul safe.  No matter how hard the world is on us, she carries the spark of purpose for us.  She knows what we cannot.  No matter how wounded, she transforms, into the Old Wise One, when we need and need her.  When she flourishes, we flourish.  She is born with us and will pass with us, but she will be our core, life after life after lifetime.  She is a rare and precious jewel. 

When this precious soul jewel is wounded, she stays wounded until you acknowledge and give care and compassion to it.  You could be lugging a dying child within you.  This is a horrible image, but a real one.  No matter how we distract ourselves, she whimpers within.

Not only does she whimper, she has childish tantrums, lacks trust, is wayyyy needy, is a people-pleaser , is a master-manipulator (that is what new babies are or they would never get fed, changed and attention.)  A wounded inner child is fear-based ( hello, Carol!),  emotion-shamed, and huge abandonment issues. (Remember, I was a throw-away baby and was given to a wonderful family who tried their best to help me survive.  February 10^th is my adoption anniversary-birthday.  I carry HUGE Primal Wound issues I learned how to work on mid-life. This means physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, that I have had many many issues and continue to work on them today…every day.)I had to examine the ways I was BE-ing.  Here are some ways I learned to help heal my poor bedraggled little Inner Child.

I had to, first, find the ways I was affected and how hurt and how many kinds of hurt that my Inner child had.  I have to tell you, that I did not get to the key trigger/reactions to having a wounded Inner Child.  I began the hard work when I left my 19-year marriage, drug myself and my seven children through hell and high water in university.  (My baby was 2 years old and I had had a brain bleed when he was 6 months old and had to recover from that... and, by gosh and goddess, I did.   I took many psychology classes, women’s issues classes, and did the work on me that was required and as I discovered them.  It was not until I retired, in 2005, that I retired, moved to Maine with my sweetheart, and spent two years, day and night, writing the story of my life.  It was the most incredible gift I have ever given myself.  The book started out, seriously, sketchy and I had no idea how to start it all, but I decided to make parts of my life into significant events; the ‘story’ of my being abandoned, being given to an older couple (thank you god, goddess, and the Universe) but, as I found out later, not adopted, merely a name change.  Then my children, then University, then career, then one of the greatest gifts I could ever/never even imagine.  (More on that in Feb when I hit my adoption-anniversary.)

When the two years was up and I was going through on about the 9^th edit, I started to realize that I had the Primal Wound and how it had affected me.  That last edit was going through and finding the places I had written textbook Primal Wound issues.  As I did so, a mountain was taken off my shoulders.  “I love you.  I forgive you.  I love me.  I forgive me.”

If you ever want to really get in touch with your Inner child, at trigger, wounding, depth, write the story of your life.  I will ever be so grateful to those who encouraged me to do so.  The going through, sifting, knowing myself at this level connected me directly to my Inner child.  Do it, try it, it is amazing work.  I still work on that today.  Once in a while, I will pull up my story and go through it again… so many ah ha moments.

Then, rather than remember all the negative things, I went through again and again and found my joy.  Then, as well, after publishing, I moved into art, seriously, for me.  I had taught art and used art therapy in my programs I wrote and used to retrieve troubled youth in troubled communities, and worked with pre-school children up through teaching collage classes, and running women’s circles.  The secret to it all was that every wound I had helped me be better at what I did for a career.  Most times, child, youth, adults did not even need to say the words that were so difficult to say.  I knew them by heart and sight.  As I ‘arted’, I gained better understanding of my inner workings and have, ever since, been connected to that Inner child at very deep and intimate ways.  I understood why I have patterns and challenges I did.  I learned self-compassion.  I regained a sense of childhood wonder and expression of a healing Inner Child.  I regained a sense of authentic Self.

Can you express your Inner child?  Here is mine:

 

I drew the face on a warmed up substrate, in red ochre acrylic.  A child's face is more "cheeky" and I tried to get that shape.

the background showed through well so I thought I might use that as I went along.  I added more portrait pink,

suddenly she came alive, this Inner Child of mine.  Once I get the eyes in, my Muse tends to take over, at times.  This time, for sure.

I struggled with the nose.  Baby's noses are puffy ( made for breast feeding ease)  I was not happy with the nose even at the end.  

She does look sad to me....  maybe she looks judgemental...  maybe she is pssively waiting for me.  I caught it enough for her message to me so I stopped before I tried to change her.

Slow Down

 

 

 

We are mucking through, the best we can, these months and years.  Once I was so goal oriented.  Now, who cares if I even have a goal.  I have pared down my “to do list” to, now, look like “I Might List”. 

These couple of years have been a psychological press to do less, to slow down, (age makes me slow down as well, since a pirouette doing my dust-mopping can throw me to the floor), and I am settling in to being more present.  It doesn’t mean that The Present, is a wonderful space to be in, but at least it is real.  I am being Present in being grateful for all the little things and not sweating over the big ones. 

I have slowed down because I am trying to fill time and if I get it done too fast, then I start wringing my hands with “what to do, what to do, I don’t wanna do that, what to do?”  I am going outside, even in our cold snap and snow snow snowy gray days ad finding something to enjoy.  Have you ever listened to the snow fall?  I had never.  I have now. 

It was progressive.  I have been such a go go go girl that it has taken these two years to get to this.  I now rest from 1 – 2pm because that is when I wear down.  I will sit and art or do diamond painting work, or read, or even nap.  Oh, I have learned to love naps, but I find they are addictive because my muscle memory is “nap at 1 o’clock’ and even if I need to do something, I cannot drag myself to do it.  I rest. 

I was always focused on doing, going, hurrying, excelling, failing, getting up and doing it again another way, kind of person.  I forgot to just BE.  I have learned to be more patient with myself, to be more compassionate and loving towards myself.  At first, I had to think. Consciously, about slowing down and being Present.  These last couple of years has afforded me time to learn to do that.  I am an unfinished project, myself.  Ah, yes, slowing down feels so awesome... in fact, it was a foreign to me before.  Now, I luxuriate in it.

©Carol Desjarlais 1.22.22

When I thought about the theme, I realized that I have made a habit of lying down on the couch and letting my little dog cuddle up…her favorite place to be.  And, then, we have a talk about the world.  She talks back, by the way, and what she has to say, I quite agree with.  The conversation can go on for several minutes until she or I get droopy eyed.  She has lots to say.  She is a huge part of my slopwing down as we talk.   So, with this in mind, I begin a drawing…

Pastel chalk pencils
 

 

Love Belongs To Me

 

 

 

What do we do when someone we love does not love us back?  What if you are lugging around some sorrow because… well, this is crucial… you seek validation and acceptance but are not valued or accepted for who you really are?  At some point, just be yourself.  You own your feelings, no one else does.  If you truly love, then simply love for love’s sake.  We all need people who care about us, nurture us, accept and acknowledge us; but, at what cost?

When we are reflecting love from a divine sate of being, you do not need that love to be returned.  You are loving for the love you have within  you.. it is not coming from a reflection from others.   This is tough because we have a basic human need of being cared about.  Do not seek outside validations.  Yes, yes, we all need a role model, someone we admire, and maybe love.  Yes, we need role models that teach us, inspire us, help us but they do not need to be idolized.

Our insecurities about our own self when we are insecure and seek validation.  The more you seek it, and do not receive it, the more you want it, the more it hurts that they don’t.  We give our power of love away to those who might not deserve it.  But, a truly divine Woman will know that love is for love itself, not for anyone else. 

Sometimes you just have to accept that no one owes you anything.   You get to know the pain and understand that the feeling of unloved means that you are desolate because, perhaps, we do not love ourselves.  If we do not love ourselves, we will always be needy for love (as we define it).  Love and its pain are universal.  Somehow, we have to tune more to the love inside us.  There are so many books and Ted Talks, etc., about loving oneself.  Take some time and set some boundaries around who deserves your divine love.  (Not to be all about romantic love, but the inner workings of neediness still reflects that we might not love ourselves.)

It takes courage and bravery to love, to be yourself and still love.  Once we get comfortable in our own skin, then we can be comfortable with the knowledge that not everyone is going to love us. 

We do need lasting, positive, significant others in our life.  To get this, we need to interact with others in a lasting, positive, significant way. 

Work hard on loving oneself.  Yes, learn that rose colored glasses are simply the positive ways we exude love because we are divine love within.  Divine Love within means that you have learned to love yourself first of all.

Be that!

 

I began this art journal page with  Crayola's Cream watercolor pens.   They are fabulous .  

 

I used them to scribble all over the page.    I set that aside and on another sheet, I dribbled orange acrylic and white gesso over the page. 

I used a brayer to get color on to the page, then a brush, then another brayering, then printed on it with paper toweling.

I tore my first scribble page into small shapes, and used them for this collage.  I drew a quick shape for head and shoulders and began collaging with gel medium.  I was careful when I gelled over the cream wtercolor page so that the color wuld not run. 

As I collaged I saw some interesting shapes that became a bird and some trees.

 I outlined with charcoal and used a small brush loaded with water, to set the charcoal so it is not so harsh.

 I, then worked on the face, using portrait pink, white, red ochre and pumpkin orange.

©Carol Desjarlais 2.21.22