how to self-care

1) have patience for when the maelstrom of pain bowls you over, do not flick your eyes impatiently to your watch, do not let ignorant-harsh words drop like rocks off your tongue, do not tap your foot and wish of being elsewhere.

2) be present and stay with the maelstrom and let it buffet you until you find your way into its eye, where all is calm. attend to the cries the way a mother focuses on her child.

3) repeat and promise: I will not abandon you again, and again, and again, and again – endlessly. accept that you are the pilot of the plane spinning helplessly in the walls of the maelstrom, accept that you are the mother to a wailing child, accept that you are caretaker of this grieving body. weave a new story to the wounded child – you are trying your best and it is human and it is alright and feel-observe-absorb the changes in your body, like ripples in a pond, from the right words, for the true words calm and the false words slash.

4) practice gentleness and offer it to yourself as you have generously and selflessly offered it to every other person, for you are a person, too, and deserving. for self-love is not a feeling or an attitude or a belief, it is an action and a commitment, just like its partner, other-love. for only then will the truth of you float to the surface of the deep lake, and upon reading from the lake, authenticity and peace will steal over you like warm and comforting blankets that are tough as armor. and one day, you will find yourself in the home that you have longed for once again.