All you have to do in 2024

A mantra

I had a mantra of sorts that I stared using last year. Something I would say to myself when I felt deep sadness, or anger, or confusion, or jealousy, of embarrassment, or shame, or any of the unpleasant emotions, the emotions that make you feel like you are doing something wrong and must stop immediately, or immediately begin doing something that you’re not doing, whatever it takes to make that feeling stop.

I would take a deep breath, and tell myself gently:

I would be lonely, and wonder if I had enough friends, or the right ones, or if I needed to get out more, and get frustrated that my health issues made it difficult to get out more, and start to wonder if I would just always feel sick and alone…then I’d remember:

I would feel hurt by what a lover said, or didn’t say, and then immediately start to worry that my anger would drive them away, or that it was a sign that I wasn’t supposed to be in that relationship, and the anger and fear would swirl around in my mind until I felt like I should just break up with them, even though there wasn’t really anything wrong yet, but before any of the horrible things I was imagining might happen happened, and then I would remember:

I would feel the old, familiar self-hatred creeping in, created and nurtured in me by a culture that hated women’s bodies and taught us to always see our flaws, always compare ourselves to others, always try to be better, thinner, younger, more toned, more athletic, less messy, less real, and I would start to plan a diet, or wonder how I could exercise more to get around my body telling me when it was tired and needed rest, and then I would rage at the system but still feel stuck in it despite the years of work and fairly tangible progress, and wonder if I would ever be able to escape completely, and then I would remember:

Sometimes my feelings do point me to action I need to take, to changes I need to make. I try very hard to pay attention to what my body and my intuition might be telling me through feelings. But first, I have to feel them. I can’t interrupt them with action items, or they will get stuck in me. My efforts to push painful feelings away end up trapping the feelings inside. But if I remember to just let them speak, they will say their piece then dissipate, flow through me like a river unimpeded by debris.

“Let everything happen to you:” Rilke says, “beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

It’s not a crisis. It’s just a fully functioning human heart, feeling the full range of human emotions. All I have to do is let it do its job. All I have to do is feel.

With love,
Jessica

P.S. I don’t know how or why, but my fourth book, Good Morning, Friends is still on deep sale over on Amazon, and Amazon continues to take a loss with each sale and pay me royalties out of their own pocket. Anyway, let’s keep taking advantage of this glitch in the system! Get Good Morning, Friends here!