First, I must learn how to feel the connection with myself. My diary can help me with that—so can some conversations with myself while walking in the woods, sitting in the bathtub, and lying in bed relaxing to some music before bedtime, as will meditation and deep breathing during yoga. All of those will help me get closer to me. So will a cup of tea while staring out into the rain from my window—even if that image of my mother comes up, reminding me of the days she was depressed and I could not reach her. But maybe those were the days she was communicating with herself, going into repair mode as I call it now—when I take time out for me and nothing else.
Some nice bodywork, a nurturing touch, and safe energy from a divine healer will help me too. That way I can feel the love come alive both within me and around me. The connection to healing, through touch, is very important when we need to awaken our hearts and come alive again, when we need to re-learn how to trust and love. Touch is the one thing that we are so starved for these days. There’s just not enough of it in our culture. A recent study showed that a couple in America would only touch a handful of times during one hour in a café, while the couple from Italy would touch more than 150 times. We need touch to feel our aliveness.
Good food is very healing and a necessity in our care taking and love toward ourselves. We cannot love ourselves if we do not treat ourselves with the utmost care, especially when feeding ourselves. Just as we care for a baby’s development, we need to care for ourselves when we’re grown up too.
So, from here on out, love and life have to go hand in hand. Love and life have to find a way to co-exist so that I can become whole, so that I can feel life inside me and have love around me. The old doubting voice comes up, do I dare? Of course I do, it’s my life we’re talking about. It’s not my love or my life; it’s my love and my life.
By Jeanette Bronée
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