Morning Metta

MORNING METTA: COME AS YOU ARE

This came up clearly as the place I needed to go today to face fear, and I’ve been avoiding it for hours so it’s a GOOD one. Fear shifting to excitement to share it with you!

This is me, as I am. Pretty much as I woke up this morning: no makeup, hair doing its hair thing. Just, what’s present.

I took this after a conversation with a friend this morning about “not having good pictures yet” to share on social media. Wow, are we all under pressure to look great all the time, here. Smiling, popular, perfect vacation, perfect relationship(s), loving awesome close family also smiling and also on perfect vacations, successful, sexy, stylish, healthy. We compare. We compete. We constantly feel all the ways we may be coming up short.

I’m human. I’m not a flower arrangement. I’m not a supermodel. I don’t want to be. I’m not willing to pretend that I’m any happier, skinnier, more fit, younger, more successful, more anything at all except how I am right now, in this body, in this moment.

It makes it impossible to let down our guard and let anyone in, as long as we buy into this culture of perfection. Impossible to just be, relax, open to all the pleasure in each moment. To trust. To let in love, feel our bodies, share and play in s*x and love and out in the world. Because if I have to be perfect, I can’t ever afford to try something new, to be a beginner, to make a mistake. I might be seen as less than perfectly presented. I don’t ever get to just play. And the best sex, the kind we crave and cherish, the kind that feels timeless and holy and breaks us open and puts us back together in all the right ways… is nothing BUT play. That’s when we know – we KNOW – we are loved for everything we are, exactly as we are.

You get to have this too. You get to be sexy and loved and have orgasmic pleasure right now. Without having to earn it. Without having to meet the deadline, finish the laundry, change jobs, lose weight, hide anything about yourself, fit in. Pleasure is your birthright, just as you are. Even when – especially when – you’re not shiny and groomed and smiling and polished to perfection. In fact, it’s available right now. You can give it to yourself. In any given moment.

Me too! I get to be sexy first thing in the morning, when my hair is whatever and I haven’t brushed my teeth. I get to be open to pleasure when I’m crying. I own my whole body and all it has to offer, even when I’m scared. When I’m just here, needing touch, wanting connection, open to being with you, just as you are, too.

When I saw this photo, I got those voices that still want to tell me about everything that’s “wrong,” that I couldn’t possibly show to you. They are old friends, now. They’re not going anywhere; that’s okay. They love me. They have been trying to protect me, for a very long time. From your disapproval. From your fear. From your judgement.

I am grateful to those voices. Those are all the places I know I can lean into, in learning to love myself. So that I can let in the love others have for me. So I can soften and just BE and let in all the ways you show me and tell me that I am beautiful. Desirable. Worthy. Sexy. Good. Enough.

I’m guessing you have those voices too. When you look in a mirror, when you see a photo of yourself, do you love what you see? If not: whose voices are those? Would you like to learn how to send them on vacation, give them a break, so you can just enjoy the amazing magic that is you as you are? So you can invite everyone in your life, to do the same?

Metta is the practice of lovingkindness. I’ve been working with it for some time, especially with my body. I invite you to join me.

What if we begin each day, with a love song to ourselves as we are?

May you be happy

May you know you are beautiful

May you be safe

May you be filled with joy