Love YOURSELF As You Love Others.

I heard and read again today “love others as you love yourself” and I couldn’t help but question it and think it should in fact be the other way around … “love yourself as you love others”.

I’m not sure about you but I know (in the past) I have always treated other people much nicer than I do myself. No way would I ever tell someone they are stupid, fat, ugly, hopeless, could do much better etc yet this is exactly what I told myself all the time.

Am I right? Think about it. Think about how you treat your friends and loved ones. Now think about how you treat yourself. Is it equal? Are you as supportive, kind and loving to yourself as you are to a stranger in the street or your best friend? You should be!

So that’s why I say “love YOURSELF as you do others” and not the other way around.

Trust and Listen

Our cat Ben at the moment has the most nasty, deep, and horrid looking gash in his side. He has had it for a few days now and it has been only in the last 24 hours that I've taken a closer look at it and really started to notice it and him.

He hasn't been himself. Resting rather than out playing, staying close to home rather than venturing out and when he isn't doing that he is licking, cleaning and tending to his wound for the upteenth time.

Watching him has made me realise how in tune cats are to the nature of things and how amazing our bodies are including Ben's. I have no doubts that he will heal but I often wander would I heal the same?

If I were me would I listen to my body and do what its telling me or ignore it and go out and play anyway. Which I'm sure is what Ben would much rather be doing.

I can recall many times I haven't listened. Pushing myself that extra bit when my body is screaming at me to stop, to only end up injuring myself. Or the one I'm most guilty of, ignoring my body's plea for sleep to only stay up that extra hour and suffer the next day.

What I've learnt and am still learning is our bodies know and they communicate with us every day the only way they can, through feelings, symptoms, pain and pleasure.

Ben's injury has been a reminder to me to no longer ignore and think you know best but to instead trust and listen.

My life’s a holiday!

Sitting in the sun today, a good book in my hand and a green tea in the other I thought to myself … life is good. I also thought to myself that every day of my life is like a holiday. Don’t get me wrong I still spend my days cleaning toilets, wiping bums and hanging around little people but its also full of so much fun and joy!

Life is what you make it I have heard people say. Well if it is I have made mine one huge holiday and I love it! 

Holidays to me are times when we get to relax, enjoy and spend time with those we love doing fun stuff. Well you know what …I do that every day!  Every day is a holiday for me and it isn’t because I don’t ‘work’ … believe me I do (although my ‘job’ isn’t a paid job, it’s a job!). I may not be employed at the moment but that isn’t the reason my life’s a holiday because even if I started tomorrow in a ‘paid’ job my life would still be a holiday!

Every day I make time for me. Every day I make time for my boys and those I love and every day I make time for fun. It’s that simple. As for the housework, cleaning, paying bills and all that others tuff … well that fills in the rest of the time. Life is here to be enjoyed. Enjoy it. Your the only person ever stopping you from doing it.

Your Breasts Aren't You.

If there is one body part of mine that I would change it would be my breasts. They are much smaller than I would like. Today I again thought how this body part ‘fails’ me when I realised that they are perfect. They are mine and this is how I was made.

There are things in life I can change such as my attitude, house, belongings and what I wear each day but I cannot change how God made me. Yeah sure I could go ‘buy’ some but why? So I feel more lovable?  More feminine?  Happier ….

I may feel some of the above for a while but it won’t last. Because we all know that deep down its the love of yourself and who you are and not the love of your body that is vital, and It’s that person I am learning to love despite her casing.

I have friends who have had breasts enhancements and know that more and more women today are getting these procedures done and I’m beginning to ask why?

We are all perfect the way we are. We are not our breast size. If we all had ‘boob jobs’ where would the variety be? If we all had blonde hair … how boring! We were made different for a reason and we are all perfect in our own different way. Why be like someone else when your perfect at being you.

The Love Of A Bird ....

I witnessed something earlier today that reminded me that love touches us all. All beings and no matter if we have fur, skin or feathers, love is the centre of who we are ....

Whilst driving the boys to the park I noticed a bird on the road flapping about - a magpie. I thought he must have been hit by a car and was trying to fly back up from the ground and was unable to. However on closer inspection I noticed that this magpie was not injured. He was trying with all his might to pick up his friend, another magpie, who lay lifeless on the road. That magpie had been hit.

This was heartbreaking for me to witness, yet as I drove further down the road I realised the amazing beauty in what I had just witnessed. I witnessed love at its deepest level. A love that would risk its own life for  that of another.

That bird today reminded me that it isn't only us humans who walk this earth with hearts but those with feathers, fur, and scales too. We all share this earth and those that are born into this world will also depart it and when they do it matters, no matter who you are.

Do You Have A Toothache ...?

I read something interesting today and it got me thinking ....

When we have a toothache we long to not have one anymore. To be free of the pain and throbbing and for it all to end so that peace and happiness can return.

How many of us have a toothache right now ..?

I was thinking about this very thing today and realised in every moment there is something I am to be grateful for. Right now its a perfectly functioning body (even if its not the perefect weight, size, shape or height) its mine and it works!

I'm grateful today that I don't have a toothache and that I'm free of pain.

What The Carrot Taught Me

Halfway through eating a carrot today I stopped and looked at it. Really looked at it and noticed something I had never noticed before. I was amazed by its beauty. Within the carrot on its inside was the most beautiful star shape formation.

It reminded me today to stop. To take notice. It showed me how little I notice in life and how I'm always in a rush get somewhere, to be somewhere I'm not.

I realised today that when I'm eating most the time I'm thinking about something else. What to eat next or what I will do when I'm finished.  When I'm driving I'm never thinking about the drive itself and being in the car but on where I'm going and how soon I will get there.

I realised today that for me it's always about there and never about here. The carrot today reminded me that beauty is always found now in the moment, never there in the future. The 'there' in the future is always in your head and no joy can ever be felt there.

What Is A Soul Mate ...?

Someone recently commented on a photo of my partner and I saying that we look like soul mates and it got me thinking ...

I honestly believe that your soul mate isn't someone who is exactly like you. It isn't someone who loves all the things you love, who has the same interests, or the same dreams and inspirations, that's a friend, not a soul mate.

A soul mate is someone who brings out your worst side but also your best. Someone who at times you can't stand to be with or near and this is good thing. A good thing because in that moment they are testing you and your love for them. True love will stand there, everything else walks away.
A soul mate is someone who you can be at your worst with and say the things you'd never say to another. Mean things even. They are your soul mate because you know that when you do (as mentioned above) they will not walk away. They will stand there, accept you, and forgive you.

That to me is a soul mate.

They come in different packages and are always a reflection of you, not a mirror. A mirror would mean finding someone who is, well, exactly you and that would be boring. A reflection is someone who returns and reflects back to you what you give.

If you give the relationship love, trust and all other nice things then naturally they will be reflected and returned back to you. If you give the opposite, well watch what reflects back.

Flannelette Sheets Are The Best!

 You know what simple pleasure I love...? Getting into a bed with flannelette sheets.

Last night hoping into bed on a colds winters night and feeling the warmth and comfort of those raggy old thick flannelette sheets I felt grateful. It had me thinking how blessed I was to have such a luxury as a bed. There are currently over 100 million people who sleep every night without one.

If you have a bed to rest your head at night be thankful ... your one of the lucky ones!

Contrast In Life

 

This morning out walking on this very cold winters morning I felt grateful that it was so cold. I was grateful that we get to experience seasons.

If it were always warm with perfect clear sun shining days, how boring would that be! It would be nice at first but after a year of it I do believe you would begin to crave a change, the cold.

Contrast in life is what makes us appreciate what we have. No way could I appreciate the sun and its warmth if I did not experience the cold. Just like there is no way I could know pleasure if I didn't occasionally experience pain.

I am slowly learning to embrace it all. To be grateful for all life has to offer me as I know there is always its opposite

Gay Marriage

I heard on the radio the other day that France recently celebrated its first gay marriage - yay! What great news this is as France now joins 12 other countries that recognize gays as equals and as people who have hearts that love and desire to connect.

What I don’t quite understand is how anyone can hate the gay or find being gay disturbing? I guess because those that do aren’t gay and to them it’s unnatural. But have they considered that perhaps to a gay person being with the opposite sex is unnatural?

Do you think if a gay person had a choice they would choose to be gay, in this world! Why would they…?

I admit things are slowly getting better and in the past 10 years or so we as a society are accepting it more but I think it’s time we all embrace the gay! But not only the gay, everyone!  It’s time we accept everyone for who they are who they were born to be. I couldn’t imagine living a life where I was hated, treated differently and restricted just because I was born gay. 

I was born to only grow 153cm! Imagine if society had the belief that adults below 160cm were not worthy. Absurd. Yet how is this different than society restricting a man from marrying a man or a woman from marrying  a woman. We are not our bodies. We are beyond that. So much more than that. 

Love falls in love with another heart, another soul. Not the casing it’s in.

Two Minutes

Grateful I am for my microwave. 

It was almost 2pm today and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I went to the fridge and grabbed my lunch (leftovers from last night’s dinner) and reheated it. Two minutes.  Two minutes is all it took. 

As I waited I thought how good life is and how easy I have it that all I need to do is wait 2 minutes and my meal is ready and heated!

Imagine if it wasn’t for the microwave. Heating my lunch would be a different story and I’m pretty sure it would take much longer than 2 minutes. So grateful I am for microwaves and their convenience. Especially when I’m starving.  

The Peacock

How beautiful is the peacock!!

I was thinking about peacocks today. I know peacocks of all things. How random is that!! Anyway I was thinking about how beautiful they are, how colourful, unique and amazing their colours are. Yet you wouldn't know it or realise their beauty until they opened up and revealed it to you.

This had me thinking about how we are all like peacocks and that inside all of us is our own unique combination of beauty. Our problem most the time is that we don't reveal it or even know its there. Perhaps were to afraid to open up and show our true colours and true feelings to others. Or perhaps we think that there is nothing special about us.

The peacock could walk around thinking he is just another plain brown bird but he doesn't. He knows that there is something special about him, something so unique and amazing underneath his feathers. It is with that belief that he spreads and fans his tail to reveal the most magnificent array of colours. The peacock has confidence.

We as people doubt our own colours. I know I do. To often I try to be like others or I hide my own colors to embarrassed by how uniquely different I am. But what I've come to realise is that its my uniqueness, my 'colour combination' that makes me, me. Just as the peacock was made to spread its wings and show off its colours we were made to open up and reveal our own beauty.

You were never born to hide. You were born to be seen ♥