30 days of self-love: community

I haven’t posted in a handful of days. Part of it was that I was living the self-care, the self-love – I prioritized sleep, spending time with my partner, grounding back in community here in New Orleans. Part of it was my ever-present struggle with balance and time management. Part of it was that I have been experiencing high highs and low lows and my capacity has been all over the place, just like me. I’m an imperfect person still worthy of love, even if I miss 4 days of posting on my blog. Even if I know I have a lot of work to still do around consistency and commitment. Mmm…it feels good to say that out loud, sort of roll my shoulders to settle into that truth. Yes I am.

So, community. I spent a lot of the summer based in Austin, literally and figuratively. I was in a community there, and it was really healing for a while. Then it started to not feel so good anymore. There were so many rules and expectations that I had embodied, and when I didn’t resonate with many of them anymore, I felt trapped, unsuccessful, unclear, disconnected. What had started as a way to go deep into a journey of myself in community had become something else I’m still exploring. An incredible learning experience, of that I’m certain. I’m not ready to write about it, and I will.

(Image credit: exploringyourmind.com)

I bring it up as a contrast to the community I’m finding again in New Orleans. I believe there’s something for everyone here in this city. It’s such a special, rooted place, if you’ll let it take you in. I’ve felt really disconnected from here many times in the years I’ve lived here, and I understand now that was in large part because I was still living the way I had been since I was an adult: one foot out the door, waiting for the shoe to drop off it so I had an excuse to leave. Again. Again. Again.

I’ve spent the past couple weeks in different communities here, where I’ve been able to see so many different ways that I belong with people. With writers, in communal circles, in ecstatic dances, in the park with my neighbors and their dogs, holding hands, howling at the new moon with the spirit of Samhain in my heart. Even in the virtual somatic program I’m taking, we learn practices that bring us together. I understand how strong the human ability is to connect, driven by our need for it. And how much we become who we’re meant to be, embodied, entangled, one, when we’re ourselves in community, when we can access and be accepted for who we are without conditions.

Can I love myself enough to recognize the truth that I belong where I go, that I’m as valuable and worthy as the person standing next to me? Can I love myself to acknowledge I am a needed part of the collective?

I know it. And I keep practicing knowing it. I say it out loud.

I belong where I go, I am as valuable and worthy as the person standing next to me.

I acknowledge I am a needed part of the collective.

And since research says it takes 300 repetitions for a practice to become muscle memory and 3,000 to be embodied…now only 2,999 more times to go.