On beauty and strength... a guest post by Natalie Patterson

Friends- I'm delighted to bring you a post by guest blogger Natalie Patterson.  She's a poet, an teaching artist and amazing human who teaches me about being a better person whenever I get to spend a bit of time with her.  I'm also delighted that she's a facilitator and will be teaching and performing at our Beautiful You Retreat November 5,6,7th.  So, without further delay... here are the words and wisdom of my friend Natalie.

Timalee

Ever since I was a little girl, beauty equaled strength to me. Every person I thought was beautiful, was because of an inner power that seemed to pour out of them. It was in their laugh, in their walk, in their ease with speech. I have always been drawn to a great smile, a true smile. Beauty had nothing to do with being perfect and it still doesn't to me. 

I have come to understand that my body, at whatever version of itself it is in now, is a gift. I had a thought when I was around 25, that if I married someone I didn't already know, they wouldn't get the "privilege" of experiencing my 20-something body. At 31, I am still unmarried and I suspect that should I ever marry, they won't have known me, in my 20s and that's ok. They get to know me now. They get to enjoy my wisdom, the grown of my body and the relaxation in my stride, that I didn't have access to, in my younger years, that I am well-acquainted with now.  I suppose this is what aging is all about, the gratitude that comes, that fills all the silly holes, you think you have.  

So while my body is ever-evolving, as is my self-love, what I know for sure is that we all have access to beauty, all own it. Sometimes we forget where we put the key to it, or rather that we are the key. Be diligent about finding your way to your own beauty, about defining it for yourself. It is important. You are important. 

Mine and Yours, 

Natalie Patterson 

When our habits that make us smaller than we are...

Photo credit:  UncommonArtist.com

There are two times of year that I tend to be especially introspective.  Fall is one of them.  I think it's the trees shedding parts of themselves that are no longer serving them.  There's beauty and balance in it.  Letting go of the old, preparing for what's to come.  There's a magical beauty in the mish-mash of colors gracefully floating to re-connect to the earth in a different way.

It occurred to me today, after seeing some stellar modeling from a friend, that sometimes I'm not very good at asking for what I need.  It's a tendency, or habit really that makes me smaller than I am.  It definitely doesn't serve me.  

I believe in living with intention and purpose.  So, therein lies my project for the fall.  I'm starting a 30 day challenge to make some progress with asking for what I need and gratefully (and gracefully) accepting the help of others when it's offered.

What are you ready to let go of?  What habits make you smaller than you are?

What's the best thing when you find you've temporarily lost your way?

We all lose our way from time to time.  All of us.  Anyone who says they don't has got to be pulling your leg.

I've found myself in that place of late.  I have had my head down being so busy being busy that I looked up and found myself overwhelmed, under appreciated, under rested, eating and drinking more than I need to, not doing any small acts of self-care.  Lost.  Well, if I'm really being honest... lost and utterly lacking in anything resembling joy or happiness.  Imagine my surprise.  I certainly know better.  But, there it is.

Thank God for girlfriends.  In these times, it's my girlfriends who are my compass.  They help me pull out the map of my life (which is never folded correctly), and help me identify which particular eddy it is that has me swirling and where it is that I want to go.

Good girlfriends will crawl around in the darkness with you, shining a flashlight on the things you didn't want to look at.  They'll sit with you during the ugly cry and say "I know."  A really good girlfriend will call you on your *ish when you try to get in your head and logic it away.  And they'll invite you to come to yoga with them and begin to do a kindness to your mind, body and soul.

And if you're not ready to have the light shone on something hard to look at.  Don't worry.  Your girlfriend will be ready with her flashlight another day.  You can try again then.  She's not going anywhere.

Baby steps my friends.  An extra glass of water one day.  A long walk the next.  If you move in the direction you need to go, it doesn't matter if it's a baby step at a time.  Keep on moving.  You won't be lost for long.  Your girlfriends will see to that.

Everyday the butterflies come

Every day the butterflies come.  I'm not sure how long it was happening before I noticed it, but since I started paying attention, it's been at lease 3 weeks.  Every day they come.  Usually, I encounter an average of five butterflies a day in the course of my day.  Big ones, tiny ones, plain ones, colorful ones.  

At first I thought it was a curiosity.  Then I thought it was a little freaky.  Now I expect them and I giggle when they flitter through my day.  

I love that they come, but I haven't figured out why.  I haven't mentioned it to anyone or written about it before now.  I thought in time, the reason would become clear to me, but it hasn't.  I've always remembered this quote from The Color Purple:   'I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.' Maybe it's the same thing.  Maybe God just wants me to slow down and notice them.

When looking for meaning, there's also a lot of symbolism that I could draw from too. Metamorphosis, new life, becoming.  Also, the way they dance past me... part joyful and carefree, but also sometimes looking like they're slightly out of control and just trying to stay upright.  These too all fit the current circumstances of my life.  

Whatever the reason, that they come, I am grateful and feel blessed that they do.  

How beautiful it is when we feel ourselves opening

Personal growth comes in spurts, doesn't it?  

Sometimes I feel like I'm just humming right along and then a moment happens and I feel myself opening.  Opening to acknowledgement of a stumble, opening to awareness, opening to the possibility new and deeper relationships... just opening to possibility.  All that came from a 60 minute conversation this morning with someone the Universe unexpectedly put on my path a few months ago.  I was inspired by someone I saw speaking beautiful and powerful poetry on the internet.  I reached out.  She reached back.  Now I get to call this amazing woman my friend.  Boom.  Across the jungles of time and space, our paths crossing in a particularly serendipitous way.   

I'm blessed to learn some lessons from this new friend.  Blessed that she can extend a bit of grace to cover my unintended privilege blunder.  Blessed that she can help me see that I'm looking at things through a too small lens.  Blessed to hear her affirming words about what I'm trying to create. Blessed to hear her say "It's limitless".

Today, I'm sitting in that possibility.  Here, in my big comfie chair, in my pj's... her words ringing in my ears... I'm opening to that true fact.  It's limitless... I am limitless.   And so it is.  And so I let it be.

Are you re-filling your empty bucket with a cup?

I've been thinking about this a lot.  Women need more places to come together to support one another.  Women need a safe space to try on new ways of being.  A place to catch a glimpse of what is possible when women hold each other up.  When women bear witness to the lives of other women, and honor them for what they have been through, survived, achieved… it gives them permission to fully bear witness to their own lives, their own stories.  Permission to stand in their truth and be honored in return for their strength, their beauty.

 It is typical in America that women give and give.  Women do for others all day, every day, without stopping to refill their own bucket.  We are so busy being busy in our lives.  Grab a workout before work.  Try and leave work on time to pick up the kids at day care.  Stop at the store for groceries for dinner.  Make dinner.  Homework.  Bath time.  Bed time.  Try and get through some of the emails that didn’t get addressed at work before hitting the sack ourselves.  Sometimes we numb ourselves out with alcohol and bad TV.  We congratulate ourselves when we slow down and take an hour at a time for ourselves for yoga, or a massage, or quick workout.  When was the last time you were fully present and engaged at home, at work?  We think an hour spent on ourselves is going to set us right again.  For most of us, it gets us through another day, another week and then we put another cups worth of water in our empty bucket and do it all again.

When was the last time that you took the time to reflect on the strength it’s taken to get to where you are in life?  When was the last time another person has said to you “Wow, that’s really something.  You’re an amazing human being”?  Does the idea of spending 3 days checked out of real life, and focusing on yourself scare the pants off you?  Does it feel selfish?  Is it strange to think about spending $500 on yourself in one fell swoop?  Lean in to that discomfort and think about doing it anyway.  Retreats  like this one, are a magical gift to yourself.  Aren’t you worth it? 

 It's a lot easier to refill the bucket by dipping the whole thing into the well.  

Where are you now?

I don't know about you, but for me it comes down to being present.  Present, in my skin, in this moment right now.  As a child abuse survivor, as a fat kid, as a fat woman... I'm pretty damn good at moving around this world, doing my job, being a family member, a friend- all while completely shut down somewhere inside myself.  I'm so good at it, that for about 30 years no one knew the difference.

The thing is, I know the difference.

And although I'm grateful for what was a helping coping mechanism for me as a child, I no longer wish live that way.  I want to be present for the beautiful moments in life as well as the painful ones.

Because I was shut down at points of my life when I should have been discovering things like whether my body liked to play softball, or flipping and turning on gymnastics equipment or hiking in the Arizona desert, my auto response was that I don't like those things.  When I am a fully present adult I have the choice to try new things, and to decide again whether I like them or not.  That's what I want for all our participants at any Beautiful You retreat.

We designed the Beautiful You Body Love retreat to give participants a chance to practice being fully present in their bodies.  If you've experienced disordered eating, body shaming, battled cancer and lost a breast, or any of a myriad of wide ranging experiences that cause us to struggle with our bodies, this retreat may be for you.  You'll sit in circle with a group of supportive women and be accepted unconditionally for who you are.   You'll have a chance to try body positive activities like yoga for all bodies, and drumming and dancing.  You'll be gently guided to identify old messages that may be running the show of your life now.  We'll learn and practice new ways to release those messages that are unhelpful to you now.  We'll all have a chance to view our bodies through a new lens- the lens of the body love revolution.  We'll take a brand new look at ourselves with kinder, gentler eyes and cheer each other all along the way.   We'll probably laugh, there might be some tears, we guarantee some cheers... and all of those things are signs that we're fully present and that my friends is the whole point.

If you would like to learn more please visit www.livebeautifulyou.com