By Appreciating Me, I Love You

I appreciate myself. 

Happy New Year!   This post is inspired (read poured onto my notebook) by the 10th week and final week of The Presence Process.  If you often find yourself seeking appreciation and approval of what you do,  what you know or who you"be" in this crazy world this post is for you.  Through writing this, I was able to FINALLY feel and embody appreciation of myself last Thursday morning. Perhaps you won't have to take yourself though such an intense process and purging in order to embody this by writing your own letter.

Dear Leslie,

I appreciate that you lose sleep over minor injustices done to kids on the playground and brainstorm ways to make it right in the wee hours of the morning.

I appreciate that you see clearly the illusion of separation between humans as well as between humans and nature.  I appreciate that you try to fill in the gap with love, acceptance and truth and fiercely commit to shaking people (however ineffective sometimes) from their slumber.

I appreciate that you feel things deeply, sometimes painfully, blissfully and almost always viscerally.  I appreciate that you attempt to communicate these Oneness experiences with the intent that others may understand the ridiculousness of continuing the belief of the illusion of our separation.

I appreciate that although you fail over and over in filling this gap...bridging the worlds, that you continue to try over and over (many times to your own detriment and that of your family).

I appreciate the purity of your intentions and motivations. 

I appreciate the love you feel to and through your bones for humanity and the earth. 

I appreciate that it feels hard sometimes to not have this recognized consistently by the outer world.

Dearest Leslie,

I now give you permission to just be.

You have in your body the perpetual feeling of love for other and world, I now give you permission to stop trying,

to stop filling,

to stop bridging,

to stop fighting,

to stop sharing,

to stop talking,

to stop proving,

to stop giving away the love and peace and presence that has been gifted you from God and the Universe.

I give you permission to hold that love, presence and peace in the chambers of your physical body,

allowing them to filter through every system, replenishing and growing to overflow so that your be-ing becomes a natural expression of service, love and peace wherever you go.

Rest now, love.

Peace,

Leslie