Countdown to Contentment ~ Day 19

  

Loving ourselves and life from where we are 

I’m counting down to contentment — to the starting date of my new sacred journey course,“Creating a Life of Contentment,"  which begins Sept. 15. For one entire year we will travel together as intimate companions: to relax, let go and rest into Love; to discover the bliss of our own life. I hope you will join me! You can learn all about it here. 

Being True to Yourself

Sometimes a woman’s gotta do what a woman’s gotta do. And we do it in the name of comfort.

Friday I took the afternoon off. I vowed to get to the beach before summer was gone. Here it is nearly September and I’ve barely made it to the shore.

It was a perfect day. High 70s, light breeze, sun tempered by a few clouds. I put on some beach shorts and a tank top, packed a tote bag, and walked there. It’s only a few hundred feet from my front door.

After an hour of reading and resting, I just had to go for a swim. I walked back to the house, grabbed my inner tube and water shoes (it’s very rocky here), and ignored the voices in my head that said I “should” put on a bathing suit.

‘And why?’ I asked them back.

‘Because that is what women do. They wear bathing suits to the beach. What will your neighbors say if they see you wearing your regular clothes in the water?’

‘I don’t care,’ I said. “I just want to be comfortable. Hmpfh.’

And, of course, wouldn’t you know, just as I waded in, tube in tow, my neighbor who was now on the beach too waved to me. Sheesh, I thought, that voice is going to start yacking at me again. ‘She will think you are so weird.’

But I didn’t listen. I went swimming with my clothes on.

I felt wonderful. So comfortable. As I leaned back to rest my head on the tube, I gazed at the sky. Felt the sun on my face. Spied critters in the cloud formations above. Waved at the seagulls overhead. Reveled in the feel of cool water on my skin.

Contentment was mine.

Contentment made all the more wonderful because I didn’t listen to my inner critic or her nasty cousins, “the shoulds,” because they can whisk away a woman’s contentment faster than a cold wind in August.

Comfort often ushers in feelings of contentment. As does honoring yourself. It can feel very good to be true blue.

Especially under a wide blue sky ...

What feelings can you honor in yourself today to welcome in feelings of comfort? Of contentment?

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ 

Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces ...

~May Sarton

Register for the "Creating a Life of Contentment" 12-month spiritual journey course before midnight August 29 (EST, US time), and receive a free book of your choice from me. I love giving gifts away!  Get yours here.