Who knew what a decade would bring
Ten years ago, if I could have glimpsed myself as I am today, I think perhaps I'd have been surprised. Not straight up shocked, as the seeds were already there, but surprised at how they grow.
In December 2009 I'd been married 1.5 years and Nathan's absolute love for me was changing everything. Our souls found each other, merged, and their combined fire protects us, fuels us, and lights our path forward. We choose every day to tend this shared flame with the utmost of care.
In 2009 we lived in a small one bedroom home he had bought just before we got together. I had quit my job at a Christian non-profit shortly after we married. I was certified as a doula by one of the most mainstream doula organizations and attended births in that capacity. I also worked part time as a receptionist for the mainline church we attended that Nathan had grown up in. I identified enough with the Christianity of my youth to keep attending church and praying and singing and volunteering and donating money and calling myself a Christian.
I had long curly auburn hair. No tattoos. No kids. No Hedgecraft Herbals or reflexology or yoga nidra or kundalini yoga. I assumed I was neurotypical. I assumed I was straight. I assumed I would one day mother a family of 'typical' kids. I believed I was broken and damaged and a sinner and that I would never be good enough. I existed to support others and I contorted myself to meet their needs and desires. I struggled constantly with feeling like I needed to be neutral and palatable and self-deprecatingly 'humble' when in reality I'm deeply passionate and decently knowledgeable about my areas of interest.
Life is a beautiful spectrum full of in between places
Amidst the struggles, I've learned that life isn't binary, it's a fluid spectrum of colour and diversity and sunsets and sunrises and in between places and we each have a place all our own within that beautiful spectrum.
Amidst the struggles, the seeds of who I am today were germinating and poking their way through the soil of my heart. I had become a doula despite being told I shouldn't because it wasn't my "calling" and I therefore would not be good at it. I had already taken levels 1-3 of Therapeutic Touch, learned to tap by reading the old EFT/Tapping manual from emofree, had a small cherry quartz pendant which I wore under my clothes on clear fishing line so it was less likely to be noticed and 'cause offence'. I did all those things even though they "weren't Christian" and therefore "not okay". I used acupressure and essential oils and Pilates and nutraceuticals and vitamins to support wellbeing. I learned a bit of basic popular yoga. People joked that had I been born in a different era I'd have been called a witch. (Oh the irony that it was laughed off then!)
Who I was ten years ago? My 30'ish year old self did the best she could with what she had and when people dumped shit she used it as fertilizer for her own growth. As pieces of her old self died she didn't tear them out and discard them but rather, enfolded them into the soil of her heart so they could become the richest of compost made precisely for her nourishment. I am not who I was a decade ago and yet everything I am today was already within me. Because everything we need to be happy, healthy, and whole is within us now. We are stardust and LOVE and Light. And who I'm going to be ten years from NOW…. well she's already growing within me too, held in sacred trust by my soul's shared flame, and I can't wait to see who she becomes. 
I choose LOVE.
For now though, I am choosing LOVE. Choosing to LOVE my self so deeply, so radically, so completely, that it changes everything. Choosing to LOVE so brightly that it burns their eyes. I don't mean being selfish or narcissistic. And I don't mean the mamby-pamby gushy notions of "love" that our culture peddles, or affection and attention. No. I mean the kind of LOVE that caused Harry Potter's touch to destroy Voldemort/Quirrell because LOVE lived in his very skin. The kind of love that gave Mary Magdelene eyes to see her risen Jesus first (see Mary Magdelene Revealed by Meggan Watterson). The LOVE which is at the heart of the Divine Feminine and which is the source of all Light and Love and goodness in the Universe and beyond. The kind of LOVE which sets boundaries and moves mountains and allows a whole new way of being to unfold for the world because every thing in the world began as a feeling and a thought so when we change our thoughts we can change the world too.
Over the last few months, I've come to see LOVE not so much as a gift to be given or withheld, by our mothers, fathers, spouses, or anyone else, but rather, as the source and sustainer of life itself, the infinite wellspring from which LIFE flows, the cosmic web which holds LIFE together. I've come to believe this LOVE exists in each of us like an omnipresent and unextinguishable pilot light. Even when we die, LOVE carries on. It continues to exist as part of LOVE collective and in every person we ever extended our LOVE and life to.
I'm a reader, and over the last few months of 2019, book after book had this theme of LOVE crop up. I don't do resolutions or goals - - they are anathema to my PDA nature. lol. A sankalpa is different though. It comes from Sanskrit and is a small but mighty component of yoga nidra meditation which is where I learned about it. A sankalpa is a present moment fact about the sacred truth of who you are, not merely what you will or won't (try to) do. A sankalpa is like a solemn vow, the seed of which already exists within you, chosen to bring body mind and soul together towards its growth and fulfillment. It is something I can get behind and for 2020, my sankalpa is LOVE. LOVE is my source. LOVE is my sustainer. LOVE is my guide. I choose LOVE.
