1) Know Your Deepest Intentions
For the first time in my life, what is most important to me is what I am doing now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now. This is my life. I feel that in continually living from my deepest intentions (feeling connected to myself and others, transforming fear to love), I no longer need to script or mould my life to meet some sort of ideal.
2) Make Mistakes, Love Yourself Anyways
Yesterday I ate too much ice cream. And I loved it. This morning I did a shorter, gentle yoga practice. And it felt great. Today, I am doing some work, but I will also go for a walk, buy my husband a birthday card, and go to my sister's house for dinner. My life feels balanced, whole, complete, not because it is so successful, but because I do what I love. I make space for me. I create meaning in my work. I see the beauty in all things, and I no longer try to make myself perfect.
3) Be a Work-In-Progress
I used to think that I had to get somewhere, to fix myself in some way, to be happy, to be whole. Now I no longer see this as necessary. We can start today. In this moment. With our confusion and our not knowing and our fears and our sadness. We just breathe in to the present moment, and exhale out the hardness, release all the resistance to what is already here.
4) Embrace Your Demons
By surrounding everything I want to change with love and acceptance, I ironically don't need to change it anymore. I can love my desire to do second series. My stiff shoulders. My need to feel accepted. My annoyance with my friend. My uncertainty about where work will go. Breathe into all of it, and allow it to dissolve into this beautiful moment where all I need to do is surrender it to the deepest part of myself, to the Universe.
5) Trust the Process
The most important ingredient for this recipe of self-acceptance and contentment is Faith. Faith in myself, in the process, in the world, in feeling loved and supported by others. Faith in trying something new, a new way of thinking and being. Faith in releasing the expectations we have of ourselves, which are often expectations that we think others have of us. Faith to be myself, one breath at a time.