Prompt 1

WHAT IS SOMETHING THAT YOU LOVE ABOUT YOURSELF?

Haha, hm....*extended pause---like I am still paused. just take a nap and come back because this pause it quite lengthy and if you think I am done with the pause, just laugh because I am still in this pause*.....

Ask me anything else, please. Why am I asking?! I am the one who thought this would be a good idea. It's a way to be creative in writing. And it is a good way to just let my thoughts flow. Maybe help clean out some space from this brain of mine. Lord knows that I need a good deep clean in there. Do He? I honeslty am questioning what He does know anymore. But that is for another writing prompt or another existential crisis.

Alright, I think I have stalled enough. Honestly, *...thinking of just writing pause again and playing hold music* ...no I haven't. If you were to ask me to name something that I love about all the people I know, it would come spilling out like a tub overflowing. Ask me about a stranger and in .05 seconds I can tell you something immediately that I enjoy about them.

Me.

I hate myself. Not necessarily hate- that seems a bit drastic and dramatic (but I am, so). I do not like myslef and I am not pleased with her. I feel like I am the person standing in my way to be the best version of myself. If that even exists.

What is something that I love about myself?

If we are stripping away all the fluff from that question and just getting to the bare foundation of it, maybe I can start there. Colleen Hoover stated it best in her book, It Ends With Us, she called these moments "naked truths". So if I get to the 'naked truth' of it all- I actually don't know what I love about me because I have never taken a moment to try to love myself. Not a true moment. I don't sit back and watch myself or lean into thoughts or feelings about myself. Those are dedicated to people I truly love- my son, my husband, my family, my friends. I don't know how to shower myself with the same love. How do I?

So I am going to start where it could have ended. Instead of choosing to be angry or disappointed in my actions, I am going to choose to try to see just how strong of a moment it was. The string of strong moments that have continued. Through the burned knees, the tear stained t-shirt, the shaking breath- I fought to stay. I continue to fight to stay.

What is something that I love about myself.

Even in the silence of my living room with no one around, I am just as uneasy even thinking about this question as I would be if someone was standing right here asking me face to face.

*inhale a deep breath. exhale that breath. we are dipping our toes in to this water*

I love my pain.

I cannot expound anymore on that at the current moment. For me, it seems like the right place to start. It truly seems like the ONLY start. In order for me to love/accept/appreciate/adore myself, I need to stop fighting my pain and just love it. Like a child who is in the middle of a tantrum, kicking and screaming- I need to show patience, grace, and love to my pain. I need to realize that I cannot will my pain away but understand that it is there, just below the surface. I am not letting it go. I am not going to forget about it. I can, though, show grace to my suffering. After I have spent the energy working through my tantrum of pain, I can choose to be that homecoming embrace full of love and understanding.

Right now, that is all I can choose to say on what I love about myself. And honestly, I don't feel like running through a field of flowers with the sun shining down on me and my hands outstretched to the open sky. I don't feel anymore freer than I did when I started this writing prompt. My mind is still a tangled web of chaos, yet this is a start.

So let me leave you with this, no fluff or fancy embellishments. When you get down to the most fundamental parts of it. Thinking about your 'naked truth', what is something that you love about yourself?