There is no greater treasure than to be loved truly for who you truly are. And to be thus loved for who you truly are, one of course has to have the courage to be vulnerable enough to let people see who you really are.
Rocco Jarman
STANCE IS EVERYTHING
The following is not true as in I always manage to adopt this stance, but it is true in that it is the stance I aspire to:
I am someone who sits with my feelings.
I am someone who is present with my regrets and my triumphs, and observes them.
I am someone who can feel uncomfortable and not seek distraction, I am someone that prizes stillness, because I Understand that I cannot make the unconscious conscious if I am not present and facing, and because if I am not still I cannot truly be present.
Because I came here to live my life, to the full. I came here to know myself truly, and to connect with something bigger. Both of these two secrets lie on the far side of discoveries which ask of me to face my discomfort. Every time I seek refuge in distraction, it means I stop reaching towards the person I am to become. Every time I allow myself to be comforted by shallow engagement, the firmness of how I belong to this world is made less.
Deep and recursive rumination is still distraction. I cannot solve everything by thinking. And even so, when I am sad, I will be sad, when I am grieving I will do nothing other than grieve. When I am resting, or playing, or putting my cares down for a moment, I will be present in the space that is left when their demands have left the room for a while.
Looking after myself does not get in the way of who I am. Looking after myself is who I am.
Fun is not a distraction and joy is never in the way. My feelings and my needs are not a distraction. I may yet Choose the most frivolous of ways to spend my down time, I will do many of the same things I once did, except I will not do them impulsively and I will not do them for distraction.
I am me, I choose Life, I choose Me, and I am a thing in this world. I am Whole, within myself.
© 2023 Rocco Jarman
From the collection Following The Way