Worth: I Matter?

Jul 7

Scroll to the end of the post for July’s Playlist!

July 2024 Focus

Self Worth: honor, respect and love yourself

Last year, I wrote my last blog before my maternity leave on Anahata the fourth Chakra. It represents the right to love and be loved. Characteristics of a healthy heart chakra are: compassion, empathy, self-love, altruism, peace, balance, and a healthy immune system. The fourth Chakra is key to this months focus, and if you want a deeper dive on the fourth take a look.

I'm back! Thank you all for your patience and grace as I have been navigating parenthood. Lily Kacy Janak was born last year August 28th after 52 hours of labor (but that's another story). Some of you have started back with me already, but I want to announce officially that I am back full steam for in-person and virtual yoga to meet you- Where You Are. So let's jump into this month's theme: Worth! It’s short and sweet, but it’s a start.

“As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow.”

— Charlie Chaplin

I Matter? Yes! You matter. Your life has an impact. Your thoughts and actions ripple out into the world in ways you can not truly understand or appreciate. Aside from that though, you contain multitudes inside yourself. You have intrinsic worth that is unchanged no matter what you do, or what befalls you.

Easy to say, hard to believe, right? Like all of yoga, this acceptance of intrinsic worth, is a 100 year practice, which means that it will take time, care and consistency to accept yourself. In order to value yourself in the way that you should, you have to clear away the illusions and judgments that have been imposed on you. Don’t be discouraged if, in reading you think “Self love? Seriously? I am so imperfect in so many ways.” I’m in the same boat, I can clearly see in others what I find really challenging to perceive in myself. The precious importance, brilliance, beauty, effort, and power I see in others is so inspiring. It is hard to feel and accept that inner light especially through all the ups and downs of life.

Becoming a parent has opened up a new part of selflessness in me, for better and for worse. Firstly, seeing my daughter as the center of the world has shown me what unconditional love can be. There is nothing she could do to change her worth to me, nothing. She is perfect in her imperfection. Until now, I never understood entirely what parents meant when they said they would do anything for their baby. She is so incredible and beyond compare. I get so much joy from showering her with love. It feels like a new part of me has opened and I am capable of love I couldn't have previously imagined.

Now for the worse, I have not been honoring myself with how important she is. I can easily see how parents can be consumed with love for a child and forget about all else. It's so easy to forget about my own needs, desires and wants when I am so focused externally on her. Love is a good thing, but smothering my baby in too much love and losing myself will not benefit either of us or our long term relationship. As she becomes more independent I need to let her become her own person and reclaim my needs and desires.

Here's how I see it— We were all babies once. Visualize little baby you, chubby cheeks, wide curious eyes, tiny hands and kissable feet. You are deserving of unconditional love and doting adoration, regardless of your start in life or your parents. When I’m being unkind or unfair to myself I try to think about how I would feel if my daughter said unkind or unfair things to herself. My love for her is so fierce, so wild and I am incredibly protective of her. What would it be like if my love for myself was fierce and wil. What if I was protective of my own needs and wants and I set boundaries to protect myself? It’s a work in progress, but it’s worthy work.

Having gone through it I can safely say birth is a miracle, Life is a miracle. You and I are fantastic and improbable. We are like mountains. A mountain doesn't lose value from spring to fall, neither do we. A mountain is still a mountain in the sunshine and the rain, even if there is an avalanche, even if there is a forest fire; the worth, majesty, grandeur of that mountain is unchanged.

I am working on honoring myself, but without help it would nearly be impossible. I am so grateful for my friends and family because I need support, encouragement and love (just like you do). Let people love you. Trust me, the chance of being seen and accepted far outweighs the risk of rejection. It’s become a habit of one of my good friends to say, “Hey! Don’t talk about my friend Christine that way!” if I say something bad about myself. Perhaps someday I will be able to accept my own importance without getting distracted by the rain, mudslides and burned patches of my mountainous self. It's easier to see the mountain from a distance. With that in mind, let's try to see each other, affirm each other, and help each other.

This month, join me in practices of affirmation. Here are some things I say to my baby daughter with the deepest sincerity and I am working on saying to myself:

You matter

You are worthy of love

You are important

You are worthy of time and attention

You are enough

You are a mountain