Giving Ourselves Space to Just Be

I saw a picture of my younger self in my Facebook memories that evoked a swell of emotion. My mother had posted it with the text, "Enjoying life!" I sat and stared at my little face, so free, swinging without a care in the world. There are a couple of things that popped into my mind as I caressed the memory; we are stewards of keeping childhood memories full of opportunities for freeness. Free to explore outdoor landscapes and indoor spaces. Free to just be uniquely ourselves without criticism, stereotypes, judgments, expectations, or squishing into a space too small for who we want to be.

That sweet cherub face, blonde hair in the breeze, the way I gripped the swing and trusted the adult who was caring for me. I analyzed my eyes- were they puffy or tired? I analyzed my clothes- were they clean and carefully picked out for me? My curls swept my face, I was smiling. I was safe and loved. I was my purest self. I was allowed to just be. Given space to grow and flourish.

As adults, we pull away from our purest selves to shapeshift into boxes; by society, political views, or outsider expectations of what we ARE or who we NEED to be. The heaviness of meeting all of the presumptions on your life before you have even lived it. It's a weight you either learn to bare or it cripples you. Have you seen a farmer grow a watermelon in a container, the watermelon isn't that container's shape naturally, but conforms to the shape it was put in.

I sit and just breathe waving goodbye to my past selves. Shedding the skin and growing a new. The days, months, and years of learning how to get back to my authentic self. Letting go of things I didn't need to hold onto. Freeing myself once again. Not letting "all the things" defeat and cripple me. Healing my wounds and ACCEPTING that others around me did the best that they could give with what little resources they had.

So, you bring all the baggage of the journey with you, compressed failures, rejections, criticism, and disappointments into your adult world. It is the learning to heal, breathe, feel all the feelings and just take one second to understand how your little self is doing, is what we need to continue to work on. When we were little, we had someone (most of us) who did their best to look after us- tell us to take a break when we were tired, knew when we were hungry, understood why we were sad and MADE us take the time to sit in it. Just sit in all the muck until you are ready to clean it off and get back up. They wrapped us in their arms, comforted us, and helped us get back up again.

Now that we are adults, we don't heed the warnings of being overwhelmed, stressed, disheartened, grieving, or sad. We have to clock in, clock out, prepare dinner, timeframes, laundry, errands, kids, lists, tasks, tasks, tasks...and more tasks. No one is telling us to stop and take a break.

As I grow into whoever I am blossoming into, I am learning to make myself take a pause. As I water my little seedlings, meticulously analyzing them- are they tired, do they need to be watered, more sun...giving the environment to thrive, I am trying to model and teach them that it is important to give ourselves space to just be.

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