Cultivating Connection

The past few months for me have been all about connection. Connecting with my friends, with strangers, with my gut and my heart. Allowing myself to connect with beauty and sensuality and pleasure. Listening to the truest part of myself that tells me, without hesitation, that I absolutely want to shave my head. 

Cultivating this kind of connection wasn’t as easy as I expected. I have spent my life so wrapped up in my own thoughts and intellectualizing my thoughts and deciding what those thoughts that I lost my ability to tune into how I actually feel. I’ve learned I crave deep meaningful moments with other human beings and vegetables and laughter. 

I find myself always going back to the work of Sonya Rene Taylor. Her philosophy of radical self love is earth-shattering and life-changing and also very simple: living in a world full of body terrorism, the most radical thing we can do is love ourselves. It just takes a lot of practice to get to that place.

The biggest barrier to my radical self love and highest joy is my own mind. Through practicing mindfulness I’ve been able to realize many of my thoughts are not my own. My anxiety and perfectionism is a result of conditioning from parents, friends, teachers, white supremacy, capitalism and misogyny. These voices have been telling me I am not worthy of connection with myself and the people I love. I’ve been so focused on being “right” that I haven’t been able to just be. 

So rather than decide how I should be feeling about something or someone I am starting to just experience it. Rather than thinking about the potential future of all kinds of relationships I just sit and feel my connection with other people. It’s allowed me to start some truly beautiful new friendships. 

These connections feel so good that I have opened myself up to a world of new experiences. I used to believe that things were probably as good as they were going to get, so I had to “lock it down.” But people will come and go and relationships will shift and change as we go through the world and change our sense of self. My values are shifting and I am constantly learning about the world around me. This is a good thing. 

Change feels uncomfortable -- but discomfort doesn’t mean danger. Our bodies internalize so much that we start having physical reactions with our fear of the future. This is totally normal and not something that needs to change or be controlled. But recognizing this is a part of a biological process and not our highest self is key to being comfortable in trying new things, achieving a higher joy and ultimately reaching radical self love. 

I find myself coming into an era of peace where I can release thoughts that don’t serve me. I can go on a first date without needing to shit my pants. I can honor my need to slow down, ask for comfort from friends when I need it, and not take things so personally. I feel much less of a need to have everyone like me or to be “right” all the time. I am starting to make decisions that are for no one else but me. 

So in case you need permission: do the thing. Have the fun. Live your life for you. Connect to yourself and the world around you and everything will be okay.