I, Me Wed….
…There’s another kind of holy matrimony we should make room for: one that climaxes not with the oath, “With this ring, I thee wed,” but rather, “With this ring, I me wed.” We need a ritual for getting married to oneself.
Is that something you’re interested in? Do you have the nerve to go that far to prove your love?
Are you ready to give yourself with throbbing devotion and sinewy commitment and total abandon to the intimate spectacle of loving yourself? If so, I propose that we perform a ceremony in which you get married to yourself right here and right now.
Let’s begin by telling a simple truth: You will probably never create a resilient, invigorating bond with the lush accomplice of your dreams until you master the art of loving yourself ingeniously. A wedding ritual that joins you to yourself could catalyze an uncanny shift in your personal mojo that would attract a fresh, hot consort into your life, or else awaken the sleeping potential of a simmering alliance you have now.
….. If you’re feeling brave, try speaking this aloud:
“I am no longer looking for the perfect partner. I am my own perfect partner.”
Say it even stronger:
“I am no longer looking for the perfect partner to salve all my wounds and fix all my mix-ups and bridge all my chasms. I am no longer looking for the perfect partner because I am my own perfect partner.”
Speaking that oath provides a good shock to your system; it’s a smart place to start. But It doesn’t mean you’re fully primed.
More preparation may be wise.
Before you take the plunge, before you initiate this epic shift in your commitment to yourself, you may have to smash an obstacle or two.
I’m guessing that one of the main obstacles is your self-hatred –your disgust for your foibles and wobbles … the harsh slurs you inflict on your unripe beauty …your sneaky tendency to sabotage your exuberance … the bad excuses you concoct for not treating yourself with crafty kindness all the time.
Realistically, you won’t be able to completely purge this bad habit in one masterful swoop. But you can put it on notice. You can launch the crusade that will sooner or later emancipate you from its contamination.
Now say this:
“I will never again cast a curse on myself.”
“I will never again cast a curse on myself.”
Did any sensations arise in your body as you said those words. Warmth in your gut? A sob in your throat? A surge in your heart? Whatever somatic revelation arrived, invite it to go further and say more.
Next, visualize an object that signifies your propensity toward self-hatred –maybe a whip to symbolize the way you scourge yourself with punishing criticism, or handcuffs to represent your yearning for approval from people who don’t even respect you or understand you. Picture yourself throwing this object into a vat of molten gold. See it dissolve. Then say or sing these words as many times as you’d like to:
“I will never again drop a bomb on my playground.
I will never again smash a mirror on my face.
I will never again try to cut my own heart out.”
Before we get to the denouement, I’ll invite you to spend time in the coming days to carry out devotional acts that will seal the sanctity of this ceremony.
First, create or acquire two wedding gifts for yourself. The first gift will symbolize your promise to lovingly kill off a bad habit or lingering remorse or ignorant glitch that you don’t want to bring with you into your new, self-married life. The second gift will embody your intention to mobilize an unripe talent or dormant power that has been dying to come to life within you.
These two gifts can be based on the same theme. For example, you could get a hardy work boot and a fuzzy bunny slipper to symbolize your vow to regularly kick your own ass with lighthearted exuberance as well as tough love.
The other devotion I encourage you to enjoy is to go on a solo honeymoon to a thrilling sanctuary where you can try feats of strength and love that you’ve always fantasized about doing.
Now hold your own hand. Either speak the following declarations or use them as inspiration to create your own:
I love everything about me.
I love my curious beauty and my amazing pain.
I love my hungry soul and my changeable games.
I love my mysterious gambles and my humbling brags.
I love my blooming darkness and my burning flags.
I love my flaws, my gaps, my catalytic fears.
I love my puzzling insights and my scary frontiers.
I love my wrongs, my rights, and my ambiguous dreams.
I love my courage, my cowardice, and my elaborate schemes.
I love everything about me. I love everything about me.
Now either make these promises to yourself, or use them to inspire your own versions:
I will never forsake, betray, or deceive myself.
I will always adore, forgive, and believe in myself.
I will never refuse, abandon, or scorn myself.
I will always amuse, delight, and redeem myself.
Beauty and truth and love will always find me.
Chaos and wilderness will always sustain me.
I’m the fire and water and earth and air that are forever fresh from eternity.
I’m a perfect creation and everything alive is naturally in love with me.
Now if it is your will and desire to agree to the following vows, say them:
I vow to treat myself with adroit respect and resourceful compassion and outrageous grace.
I pledge to see my problems as tremendous opportunities and my flaws as imperfect talents.
I promise to shower myself with rowdy blessings and surprising adventures and brave liberations.
As long as I live, I vow to die and be reborn, die and be reborn, die and be reborn, over and over again, forever reinventing myself.
I promise to be stronger than hate, wetter than water, deeper than the abyss, and wilder than the sun.
I pledge to remember that I am not only a sweating, half-asleep, excitable, bumbling jumble ofdesires, but that I am also an immortal four-dimensional messiah in continuous telepathic touch with all of creation.
I vow to love and honor my highs and my lows my yeses and noes, my give and my take, the life I wish I had and the life I actually have.
I promise to push hard to get better and smarter, grow my devotion to the truth, fuel my commitment to beauty, refine my emotions, hone my dreams, wrestle with my shadow, purge my ignorance, and soften my heart –even as I always accept myself for exactly who I am, with all of my so-called foibles and wobbles.
I pledge to wake myself up, never hold back, have nothing to lose, go all the way, kiss the stormy sky, be the hero of my own story, ask for everything I need and give everything I have, take myself to the river when it’s time to go to the river, and take myself to the mountaintop when it’s time to go to the mountaintop.
I vow to love myself unconditionally and unconventionally until the end of time and beyond.
I now pronounce you your own husband and your own wife, married to yourself in the eyes of the Divine Wow or Yo Mama Nature, whichever you prefer, as death and life and death and life bring you together, over and over again, in new and exciting ways each time, forever and ever, until the end of time and beyond.
You may kiss yourself on your own lips.
“Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or Zen. Not any religion or cultural system…..” - Rumi
For over 30 years Paul Reynolds has collected and shared inspiration from a wide variety of sources. Embracing the philosophy that at the core of all these expressions is the reminder that we are loved and supported every moment. This unending stream of inspiration, imagination and wisdom is posted via his weekly ‘Living the Question Blog’, which has become ‘home’ for those discoveries. If you would like to receive the readings and share them with those you feel will benefit, please fill out the ‘Subscribe’ form to the right and Paul’s selections will come to your email every Friday.
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