Know Yourself

I went to Miami from March 24-April 1 and it was a wonderful trip. Mark was right when he said I'd (mostly) forget about the body stuff when we got there. I honestly did for the most part. I had a great time. Of course, that didn't stop me from comparing my body to almost every other woman's, but that's my issue to own. In all seriousness, the women in Miami Beach, my fellow vacationers, had bodies of all types. There weren't strictly gorgeous model-type women with perfectly proportioned boobs and butts as I feared and as I created in my mind. And yes, plenty of women I saw also had cellulite and no one seemed to care. We women  all walked around in shorts and relaxed on the beach in bikinis and just enjoyed the trip. It was nice actually. I didn't constantly look at my legs or check them in every reflective surface to see how bad things were. I simply allowed myself to live in the moment and enjoy my time with friends and my boyfriend surrounded by palm trees and warm weather.

This entire concept came into my mind today during the class I went to this morning at Bhakti Barn with Arjuna. I don't know why I never really heard these two words in his dharma talks before. He said they generally are part of his theme. I know that I do tend to be distracted or I hear something in a dharma talk that resonates with me and suddenly that's all I can think about. The two words he mentioned today were "know yourself". The third word he mentioned was "practice". His dharma talk essentially discussed how we are always learning about who we are. We have to be reminded to know ourselves because we usually walk around thinking we do when really, we're all works in progress. I know myself today for who I am today but when I wake up tomorrow, I could feel like a different Jen. I may wake up with energy and drive or I may wake up feeling somewhat overwhelmed. How I handle a problem today could be different from how I handle the same problem tomorrow.

Know yourself. Learn about yourself. Keep your mind and soul open to you so that everyday you have the possibility to let that wisdom and knowledge in. As Arjuna said today (in so many words), as long as we are alive in this existence, we have the opportunities to know ourselves and to learn more about ourselves. We have time. I enjoy knowing that at 27, I haven't attained all of the knowledge there is to attain for me. I haven't yet learned who Jen is in situations I've not yet handled. I don't know who I am when in a foreign country and faced with a language barrier, because I've never been outside of the US. Will I be frustrated? Will I try to communicate? Will I give up? Will I study beforehand so I have some conversational material to work with? But also, you may think you know how you handle conflict but each person you butt heads with has a different way of handling it, too. How do you handle a disagreement with a parent/friend/lover/colleague/stranger? Does it depend on your mood? Does it depend on the nature of the disagreement? Does it depend on whether you're hungry and therefore cranky? (Because I'm hungry right now).

It is so vital for we as human beings to be. Yes, just to BE. It's important for us to exist where we are and be mindful everyday and to make those efforts to know ourselves so that we can be aware of both positive and negative times and be conscious of what we need versus want, or love versus dislike, or know versus think we know. That last concept is such a brutal one, too. Because really, who wants to admit a LACK of knowledge? But when it comes down to it, we all lack knowledge and we lack wisdom because we're not done with this life. We should leave the mind portal open daily to allow whatever to enter that is meant to enter and accept these new truths or facts. We can then determine how this new data integrates into what we already know, whether it changes anything, and perhaps even why it was given to us.

The only reason I brought up the pre-Miami body image issues along with this topic is because of how my thoughts and perceptions changed during and after the trip. I feel more acceptance about my body than I had before the trip. I am able to reconcile with the fact that I want to keep working on myself to get to where I want to be. Meanwhile, I was so frustrated before the trip that I actually had a five minute meltdown where I considered not going (yes, I know that's kind of crazy and irrational). I know that many people feel the same way whether it's losing weight, gaining weight, gaining muscle, stopping nail biting, etc. I'm still learning who I am. I'm still learning what I'm doing and where I want to be. I have days when I'm cranky and days when I definitely mishandle a situation and days when I feel a little bit lost. But it's all okay because I am a work in progress. We are works in progress. So I hope you keep learning. I hope you know yourself a little more everyday. I hope you practice things you need to practice everyday whether it be self-acceptance or patience or gratitude or kindness or letting go or anything else. But most of all, I hope your forgive yourself when you feel you've failed in any of these tasks and come back to the idea that you are ever-growing, ever-learning-, ever-changing.

Know yourself. Practice.
Practice. Know yourself.

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