I’m mesmerized by the patterns our lovely fall sunshine makes when it pours through the big picture windows every morning.
Today, I was reminded to be kind to myself, to all the little pieces of my heart that hurt or that are causing me some pain. Little worries, big worries, angst over what people think, the stress of juggling too many things at once and hoping that I don’t let anybody down, the bigger worry that I don’t let myself down.
The sun does a lot to help me be kind to myself. Someone very wise told me that is is impossible to love others more than you love yourself, impossible to give to others when you don’t give to yourself. It creates a wicked taskmaster. The goal is to pay attention to your own hurts—living whole-hearted—in order to love others.
It’s Rilke’s marvelous poem.
God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
And this one:
. . . I want to unfold.
I don’t want to stay folded anywhere,
because where I am folded, there I am a lie.
– Rainer Maria Rilke
I love these poems, sitting in the sunshine, feeling the kindness wash over me.
That first poem is one I think about all the time … especially the lines about beauty and terror. That’s all, inextricably, part of life, isn’t it? xo
Hi, Lindsey, I can’t stop thinking about it either! Totally part of life and being alive.