Loving You is Beautiful

Being with you is beautiful

However you are

Whatever you’re feeling.

I love you.

I welcome you back.

Together we navigate;

I couldn’t do it alone.

We are strong together

Sharing what we know

And what we don’t

On the edge of 

Finding things out.

I see you.

You are not what happened to you.

You are beautiful.

You did what you could

And your body

Created splits

Like rivers forking

All part of the one

In their fractal

Roaming of the earth.

It’s wonderful to see you

And to love you

And be loved by you.

We are not broken.

We don’t need to be fixed.

What we need is presence

For our parts to be mixed.

I wrote that before I really

Knew what it meant.

But I felt it in my being.

The whole of me knew its truth,

Grounded in a desire to mingle

And know each other,

No longer hidden.

Sometimes it’s easy to see

What we need to look at

And sometimes we hide it

From ourselves.

I’ve often said don’t go digging,

But create the conditions

For it to bubble up naturally.

Defences can be high

In everyday life.

Altered states take them away

And with them

They carry away shame

Leaving just the memories

And a sense of love

For the part that went through that.

It’s so freeing

And loving.

There’s a tension between

What’s legal and 

What can help billions of people.

I feel it in my heart:

The yearning for

A loving society

That cares

And collaborates

And chills

And plays

And weeps

Together.

Love Builds Weird and Wonderful Structures

The Black Hole, Watercolour pencils and chalk pastels on Legal Pad, A4
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The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion

The Wonderful Long Term Effects of Practising Compassion, Pigment pen on paper, 16 x 16 cm
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How to Stop Beating Yourself Up and Feel Happier

I’m late writing this blog post because I had writer’s block. When I delved deeper into why I couldn’t begin writing I found a critical inner voice saying, “no point in writing because people will be like, ugh! Oh shut up!” I asked myself what it was protecting me from and I realised I didn’t want to feel disappointment that people might not read or comment on my blog post. Now I know this I can accept that fear: yes, maybe they will not read or comment, and I will have learnt a bit more by writing, and now I can write. My example highlights one of the purposes of self-criticism: to avoid potentially painful feelings. In this post I’ll share more about why we self-criticise, how self-criticism is linked to the fight/flight system, and how we can stop beating ourselves up and feel happier.

I drew this image in 2018 as a way of externalising that critical voice that beats me up. This is just one of the forms I’ve given it over the years.
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Can Vision Boarding Help Your Mental Health?

Vision Board
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