Here’s where I am today. Me, and the puppies, and the bed. Resting. Healing. Being.

There are moments when I gaze through the storm of the last month and see that I will come through this and see my life more clearly and consciously and find inside me a big strength. I glimpse it in my eyes, and the wild locks of my hair.

For now, it is healing.

It is making my yoga class a priority, and gazing out through the studio windows to the gum trees and the galahs and the lightning in the distance. It is stretching my body in and out, wrapping my limbs in partner yoga with another mermaid-haired amazon goddess.

It is looking honestly into the eyes of one of my dearest friends who was diagnosed with cancer this week, and both of us finding a kind of peace there in that honest connection. However this all ends or begins, we will still love each other. We will still make inappropriate jokes. I will still harass her into riding donkeys, which is my secondary life passion.

It is crying and becoming achingly vulnerable on a red velvet couch as two friends hold each of my hands and listen to all the things I’ve had locked away inside me in a big wooden box of shame.

It is giving myself over into the cupped hand of God, and letting myself rest in there for a while.

The last five months of my life have been a whirlwind of dreams-come-true that felt more like a hurricane. It’s been about my To-Do list, and productivity, and copywriting, and logistics, and a ton of other shit that I’ve never though much about before. And along the way, I discovered I never really knew how to love me first. To take care of my needs – physical, mind or spirit – above all else. I thought I could keep pushing it to the back of my To-Do list.

And then my body said no.

When I found the lump last week, all I could do was hyperventilate, cry and then apologise to Chris. I wanted to apologise because I never, ever want to leave him. As much as I know that it will happen at some point or another, I really, really didn’t want it to be anywhere close to now. I want to relish every single day I get to adore this man who is my kindred spirit. I want to see a gazillion more times how his hair flecks in the light, his eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles and how his heart shines when our dogs nestle by his side. I want to be that lucky lucky soul who hears and learns from all of his wise and deep and simple words and gets to gigglesnort over his irreverent, quiet funniness. And this may all seem hopelessly romantic – and it might be – but it’s my truth. It’s what my heart sings about when I listen to it softly enough.

So maybe the lump came to show me in one moment that above all else – the To-Do lists, the business and the busy-ness – there is my whole world. And it’s made up of love, and light, of my dear fiance, my puppy dogs, my mama, papa, my crazy siblings and my wonderful friends. That’s where it’s at. That’s where life gets born.

I had my worth all tied up in how good I was at doing my soul purpose out in the world.
And I didn’t see that my worth starts and begins and is complete just inside me. This tiny world of mine that fills me up so completely with beauty and roses and snotty tissues. With love, spirit, kindness, bliss. The way I stumble and the way I soar. Friendship and bells at sunset and pain and adventure and laughter and losing it all over again, only to be reborn. The ways I love myself and the ways I don’t. Trust, faith, lack of faith and all the rainbows of being a human. The journey which sucks and is magnificent all at once. That’s all of me – and it’s complete. It doesn’t need me to be anything more but what I am. Sitting, breathing, writing, typing, getting angry, getting hopeful, crying, smiling.

What I’m saying is this:

It began with a lump.
And it made me wake up again.
And remember me.

I’ve given myself the next week off all kinds of work to heal. So much stuff I’ve been denying myself for a long time, and now I’m allowing. Giving me some space again. I don’t know what my retreat will look like. What I do know is – it is an obligation-free retreat. So anything I feel an obligation to do, I won’t be doing. It’s time to give myself some time and space and permission to be cranky, hopeful, sad, glowing, uncreative or creative. However it comes out is fine. Whatever I need is perfectly needed.

Last week I wrote a letter:
I feel like I’ve been running around outside myself.
I need myself now.
I’ve really missed me.

And so I have.

Welcome home, Leonie. I love you so much.

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