Me first!

These last few weeks the universe has been sending me messages.

I started taking free career development and creative writing classes from the Oakland Library.  The creative writing class has got my writing brain chugging again.and remembering what I missed about putting words together and the career development class has inspired me to really think about what I value about work and what I value about my life.  I deserve to be happy.  What?!  This has been an original thought for me that I have been encountering recently in many areas of life.

I was looking for new apartments recently and a friend commented that when I'm frustrated in my life I tend to start looking for new placed to live, though my living situation is not the thing spleening me.  Woah, that's true.

I also went to a yoga/meditation workshop around Valentines' Day that explored opening yourself to love.  I'm not a fan of hokey eastern things normally but I thought what the hell.  I actually ended up having really meaningful meditation and learning.  Plus an exercise we did at the end connected our relationships with our primary caregivers with what we seek in intimate relationships.  It opened my eyes to what I always look for (stability) and what I really need (affection).  I also had to consider the fact that I deserve good things and good people in my life.

Reading an article in the Atlantic Monthly about the recession and what it is going to do to our generation gave me a whole new appreciation for my job and having a job.  I hope that I'm not at my job forever, but I can use my time now to be thoughtful about what my career will look like.

It could be the universe sending me signs, or that I'm finally ready to see them, but the message is startling new to me.  I need to put me first and take care of myself.  I need to love, nurture, and care for myself the way I've been pouring that unconditional regard out on other people, with diminishing returns.  I deserve to be treated well by others, and that means myself.  I know I've said things like "self care" but I don't think I ever really understood what that meant.  I also never really saw that modeled in my parents, that you have to seek your own happiness before you can really care for others because you teach others to settle for less when you do that to yourself.  I'm still very much in the throes of practicing some self-love and even listening to what I want, but I'm grateful to have found the space to do it.  I am not moving!