Today we dropped off baby and maternity items for the big consignment sale. The hardest thing to part with was my Moby wrap. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because I used it carry Ada close to my heart for the first months of her life. It’s the only item I won’t donate if it doesn’t sell. My logical brain tells me another will appear if I need it. My heart cracks open, reaching for it, pleading to have it back.

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My neck has been bothering me for several weeks now. This is a new and strange experience. It’s the only time the magician’s fingers seem to have failed. Today he found grief there. I mentioned my due date was next week. Ah, he said, as he put me in position and rubbed the pain away. If only it were that easy.

Then we moved on to my digestive system, which isn’t processing food properly…again. He looked at me as he pushed down on my arm, A stubbornly held belief. I shook my head, Not again. We found it eventually – another variation on the same tune. He released it, then we found another. Another release. He told me to take something to help my body as I continue to let go of the beliefs. How do I do that?, I asked. It will keep percolating and in the meantime, you need to say some affirmations. You need to give yourself a break.

Yeah, I do. I thought I was. Apparently all the work I’ve done is only scratching the surface of what my body is capable of holding on to. Each layer that is peeled back exposes the next wound. My feelings of unworthiness run so deep they’re putrefying my food (his words. yummy).

No wonder we are a disease ridden population. We are taught to consume our feelings away. We eat, drink, shop, sleep, and “pleasure” ourselves into numbness then wonder at our collective dysfunction. We are taught shame at an early age – shame for our bodies, our voices, our playful spirits, our innate pleasures. We are told to grow up, sit down, behave. Don’t think too highly of yourself, it’s bad manners. You are not skinny/pretty/handsome/smart/rich/nice/good enough and never will be. Society tells us these things even if our families don’t and our bodies absorb them – they learn their lessons well. Mine was a very good student.

I don’t deserve…I’ll never catch up…it’s my fault…I can’t…

I am learning new lessons, compassionate lessons, lessons of love. My body is older, doesn’t learn as quickly, hangs on stubbornly to what’s familiar, what’s comfortable. But I sit, daily now, in meditation. And I pray, in my own way, and talk to my angels, my guides, my inner knowing self. We’re all working on it together and slowly, slowly, that dulled light is starting to shine again. Or maybe I’m just wearing glasses for the first time in my life.

Either way, I’m beginning to love what I see. I’m beginning to love me.