dear beautiful you,
Do you find yourself feeling hunched? Squished? Tight?? Yeah, me too.
I don’t mean literally. Although I sort of do. I also mean with my dreams, vision, confidence. Yes, my confidence! My self-value. I’m way too willing to put my self/value in way too small of a box.
It’s not even like the world is doing this to me (although sometimes it tries.) The truer truth is I’m 61. I’ve learned really well how to do this to myself.
It’s an old habit.
Enter the Aristotle quote*. This one found me years ago and then found me again very recently. This time, I started writing a poem about it.
Because if you are like any (every!) one of the friends I’ve talked to this week, you might also be feeling hunched over with overwhelm. Squished by a boss boxing you in. Small with the bigness of the world’s chaos. Exhausted, trying not to fall off the hamster wheel of to-do lists.
I’m not sure the poem is done. I’m not sure it matters. It gave me what I needed: a way to call in the widest, most peaceful possible vision for my life. I don’t believe a poem needs to be a ready-to-publish piece of written perfection to be valuable. It simply needs to shine a light on the next new truth to live into.
Poetry has always been there for me like that. Both microphone and magnifying glass for what the deepest part of my heart is saying and thinking.
Poetry heals. Love wins. (And may auto-correct leave you mostly alone.)
peace,
cin
P.S.
My new website goes live on November 3rd!
P.S.S.
I dug deeper and found that Aristotle’s original quote was slightly different—same intention, different words. Will Durant is credited for the exact quote above. But my cells singing with Will Durant didn’t feel quite as poetic as my cells singing with Aristotle. Alliteration + poetic license.
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