Loving all the Pieces of Me

I need a lot of rest. I need plenty of quiet and downtime. I need to go slowly through my day. I have a daily nap regime. I don’t feel like I get much work done in any given week.

I can easily put this list out there on the internet and act like I feel okay, maybe even good, about it.

The truth: I don’t like this part of myself very much.

I like when I can hustle for hours creating funnels and giving webinars. When I produce a completed sales page after sitting at the computer for six hours straight without a break. I like the version of me who has a thousand ideas and the energy and drive to put at least half of them into place. I haven’t seen that version of me in a while and this replacement I’ve been living in has taken some getting used to. 

I call her names: lazy, stupid, unproductive, slacker, worthless, useless, hopeless.

I do what we do when we don’t like parts of ourselves very much — I treat her as a problem to be diagnosed and fixed. But it doesn’t go very well. It drives a wedge between these parts of me until I realise that it’s impossible to have a healthy, trusting relationship with myself if I keep seeing parts of myself as the problem.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been working on repairing my relationship with myself, and in particular, with this part that needs more rest than I think I’m allowed. Learning to accept her, trust her, and understand what she desires.

Another truth: What she needs has brought more magic and joy into my life than anything else.

Baths at 11 am. Naps on the couch in the sunshine. Slow walks by the river. An understanding of, and connection to, the rhythm of my cycle. The shedding of years of guilt for not living up to my “potential”. The creation of rituals and routines that support and nourish me. An understanding that I am easy to love.

I think back over my life, and I think this part of me has always existed. But I learned from a very young age how to camouflage myself to blend in with everyone else. Safety was found in not standing out. Love was contingent on my needs not being too difficult to meet. And so I shoved this part into a small tiny box and locked her away. I learned to hustle, move fast, keep up, always be chasing that next achievement.

The last truth: I don’t want to be that anymore.

I like this life where all the pieces of me get to show up. Where they are all loved. Where there is room for me to grow and expand. I think I’ll stay here. I don’t know what that will bring or which versions of me come next. But I know that by noticing and paying attention, I’ll be ready to welcome them with open arms.