i will NEVER stop: Giving

  

I was making tea for myself last week and this was written on the back of the tea bag. I pulled it off, got on my yoga mat and sat with it for a second. I started to do a little yoga and ultimately had to stop and journal for awhile. What I wrote this week comes deep from my heart, it took a lot out of me last year and for some of you it might explain my behavior. I was looking to be loved when it all came down to it. I wanted someone to love, I wanted to feel loved. REAL, HONEST and PURE LOVE. And when I finally wrote all that down I realized I was loved by others but was not loving myself the way I should have. 

As a teacher I always had time to give back to others. I was giving of myself all day that it was hard to go into a space where I had to give back to me. I was used to being in a relationship where I was loved. I had never been in this space where I had no one to love me back. My love was running dry and my relationships suffered. I became very reclusive part of this year and I found that I had nothing to give to others. I would go teach class, come home and stay there. I did not want to talk to anyone, I was suffering in a way I had never experienced. I was happy, I was healthy and I felt on top of the world sill but I was not being loved. I had to learn to love myself when no one else was there to do it. I had to learn the enjoy the company of myself. To give of myself to others means that I must first give back to me. That means taking care of myself the best I can especially if I expect someone else to one day walk in my life and love me, then I need to know what I need in order to be loved in all capacities.

I want each and every person that reads this to know how driven I am to GIVE. When I take the time out to give back to me, I am able to give back to you so much more. I will NEVER stop giving to you, the community and especially to myself. My problem has never been not giving to others, it was always realizing when I needed to be taken care of. We are ingrained from a young age to always think of others first and that is important. But in this day and age of independence who is really taking care of you? No one knows how your feeling unless you tell them. I would spend time with friends telling them how I felt, hoping they would understand, they would feel sympathy for me but they didn't. And how grateful am I to them!

In order to give you must love and in return you are able to live the fullest life possible! 
I give because I do love. I care for people and see the beauty in each person. I also see struggle, pain and heartache. But as much as I would love to give you all the answers, each of us must learn how we can love ourselves instead of live in the pain, in the past. That is my gift to you. I want you to be selfish for a week and not splurging with your wallet. But make yourself a meal, go for a walk, spend time being alone to read, to journal, to do something that gives you joy without costing money. I am making a vision board of all the places I want to see, the things I want to accomplish and for the first time this year I was able to fully give back to myself and see what I want to create and inspire this year.