Permission To Be Pleased
We all have received the Sacrificial Lamb memo.
The enemies of our happiness and bliss, have made sure we have been inundated with information regarding all of the crises that abound outside of our front door and abroad. We are shocked and often traumatized by vile visual accounts of violence, and we are upset on a daily basis by social injustice, global atrocities, and unfair work conditions. Television programming is toxic and social media has proven to have a detrimental, depressing effect on many, especially children.
Most Americans work full-time jobs, spending at least two hours in traffic or work from home tasks, leaving 14 hours in the day. Deduct the 8 hours of sleep we should get and we have a whole 6 hours for life and its duties and responsibilities. Home management, household chores, parenting, managing children’s activities, domestic partnership engagement, and after all that, we need time for self-care and personal development.
Whew. I am exhausted just writing about our exhaustion.
I am here today to decree and declare that we are not sacrificial lambs. We do not have to give up our entire lives to accommodate or rescue someone else’s life. Sure, we should be conscientious citizens. We should care about people. We should support each other. We should give. But not at the expense of our well-being. Creating and imposing boundaries is the greatest act of self-care and self-love.
I challenge you to create your WHAT MAKES ME HAPPY list. Sit with yourself and discover what makes you really happy, if you do not already know, and make sure that is a Breath you take every day. I do not want you to put it on a chore list, that is work, I want you to think about giving yourself the pleasure you deserve and want in a way that draws you organically, and naturally. When you have to urinate, you go to the bathroom and sit on the toilet (or stand over), and urinate. You do not have to put that on a list. You do not have to set a reminder. You just respond to the need your physical body has.
See your pleasure the same way. I am very in tune with my spirit and my being. My pleasure principles call out and demand my attention with desire. I want to do it or feel a need to do it, or a call to do it and I do it. I was at a work event on the beach last week. Our day sessions were in conference rooms and ballrooms, facing the ocean. Some misguided suit had the drapes drawn. I asked for them to be opened and they were. All of the beauty was outside. Another time, my spirit was craving the sun so I took off my jacket and stood in the middle of the pavilion garden right outside of Ballroom A and took in ten minutes of sun. My executive leadership team wondered “what in the hell is Dana doing?” My colleagues said, “Yep, that is Dana P. all day long”.
Loving yourself will take courage. It will come with some stares and bewilderedness. Give zero fucks.
Breathe your pleasure. Inhale and exhale it. Boldy love yourself and maybe someone watching will have the courage to do the same.
-Dana Lena’
A Free Woman Writing
Originally published at http://myfreewomanat.wordpress.com on January 27, 2023.
