“Remember that a lake
can freeze
and unfreeze
a thousand times
and feel no shame.”
-James A. Pearson
This is currently one of my favorite poems to contemplate. It’s teaching me so much about myself.
Most of us believe nature is perfect as it is. And yet… we apply completely different rules to ourselves.
Somewhere along the road of life we may have picked up the belief that “good” people don’t (fill in the blank).
Feel negative emotions?
Get triggered?
React?
Contract?
We pick up judgements about what is right to feel, be, and do,
and what is wrong to feel, be, and do…
Which can end up being quite complicated when what is labeled as “wrong” is part of our human nature.
We can then spend a lifetime trying to fix and change our own nature, when what is really needed is simply to love and accept what is without judgement.
“Remember that a lake
can freeze
and unfreeze
a thousand times
and feel no shame.”
-James A. Pearson
Mother Nature has been one of the most profound teachers of self-compassion for me.
How exactly?
I don’t judge what I see in nature. It simply exists.
So when I notice those same qualities in nature that I’ve been criticizing or resisting in myself, it becomes easier to soften my judgement.
A lake freezes and thaws. Storms come and go. Sometimes it’s sunny and sometimes it’s cloudy. She is destructive. She’s creative. None of it feels wrong in nature.
Seeing this helps me accept the same contrasts and cycles that exist inside me too.
I freeze and thaw.
I’m sunny.
I’m cloudy.
I expand and I contract.
I cycle through my own winter, spring, summer, and fall
I’m destructive.
I’m creative.
I’m fierce.
I’m gentle.
I die and am reborn again and again.
These were once things I judged in myself until nature helped me see them as part of being alive.
Letting go of judgment toward our humanness is a profound step toward embodied love.
It’s okay to still desire healing and growth. But real change becomes much more possible when we stop condemning ourselves for being human in the first place.
Many of us fear that fully accepting ourselves will prevent growth. But underneath that fear is often the belief that shame is what motivates change.
I don’t know about you, but that model has never worked very well for me. Shame feels like the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results.
I may have dressed it up with aspirational intentions, but I was still bound for defeat the moment my humanness inevitably returned. (And it always always returns…)
Things began to change when I chose to keep my aspirations while letting go of the shame.
I no longer had to choose between being human and growing. I could do both at the same time.
“Remember that a lake
can freeze
and unfreeze
a thousand times
and feel no shame.”
-James A. Pearson
So can you.
You are loved.
Delightfully,
brooke