Sometimes being authentic is hard hard hard....but self love helps.

In an effort to be authentic with ya'all, I will tell you today I woke up in a pool of self loathing, that even writing a blog seems like a facade.  Let me explain a little bit of what I mean.  

I've grown to see myself how I want to be, as it helps me to be the person I want to be.  I want to be loving, kind, patient, strong, supportive, open, and authentic. Well yesterday and last night for reasons I can't always understand snippy Hope came out and well, I of course made it a point to make Steve feel like a burden for waking me up in the middle of the night.  I think the words were, "Ugh have respect for my time and stop being so needy when I'm sleeping."  

Insert the defeated emoji face.  It breaks me, to see me like this.  

So some of you are thinking, Hope you're being hard on yourself, middle of the night grumpies are normal.  Sure?  Maybe they used to be normal, but I don't want to be grumpy for my helpless husband needing me in the middle of the night.  So it made me feel pretty crappy today.  

Just one day of being less than I want makes me sad, because I WANT to be that person I see myself as.  I want to be loving, patient, kind, and supportive.  I don't want to snap just because I'm a little weary.  While meditating today, the words were floating around in my head, this is MY time, stop interrupting it. I kept trying to shake them away, and on one exhale Marlowe (our black lab) came over to me unprompted and started kissing my face. She's always so in tune to me.

She was showing me love, and somehow my thoughts shifted in that moment; to show myself some love today.  With love comes forgiveness.  Gosh, the amount of times Steve and I have forgiven each other and ourselves, it's what marriage is about right.  Forgiveness. Honestly, it's what life is about.   I started breathing the word, forgiveness, in and really focus on feeling it.  By the end of the 20 minutes I knew I felt okay enough to get through our wound care morning without beating myself up; and I also knew I needed to blog about it.

I know some of you may wonder why I share these things.  I know you're wondering it because sometimes I wonder it myself, but truth is; the more vulnerable and real I am with everyone the more we all grow.  It helps me grow to hold myself accountable and share the dark sides and how I work through them, and I hope it gives everyone courage to be able to look at theirs too.  Looking at our weaknesses isn't fun, but it's powerful.  

So today, after wound care, I have a self love date with myself.  Because as much love as I put out to Steve and others in our world, I need to make sure I'm giving myself the same.  Often times I'm leaving myself weary by trying to be everything for everyone and these episode of grumpies are often an indicator that it's time to take a break from super hope and work on some self love time.  

Today's self love = messy paint times.  My favorite thing.