When I feel wrong, I can stay with my body now. For many, many years, I abandoned myself and my body whenever I felt feelings that were uncomfortable and painful. I ran away from me; with alcohol, drugs, trying to please other people, spewing my anger out everywhere, big brownies, blaming, television and the list goes on. It is different today. Most of the time I don't run. And it is because I have come into relationship with my body and all that lives in "that intimate place", as John O'Donohue says, author of Anam Cara.

I had an experience recently with a friend who shared some feelings that she had about some of my choices lately. I felt really wrong. I heard the critical voice within me. I heard it say, God, Jenny, you really shouldn't have done that. You should have been smarter. You should have been....been...PERFECT. As my friend shared her thoughts, I stayed with my body. I stayed with all of the feelings. The shame, the hurt, the defensiveness. I breathed, I cried. And I did not utter a word as I did this. As I breathed, I prayed. I prayed, God,  let me feel this wrongness in me, God, come please, mingle with me, let your Love mingle in my shame. Let me have the faith to stay with me, to feel your love mingling with all of me. And then I heard Her, from deep down within me. A voice much louder that the one that likes to keep me in small spaces.  This new voice was like water. My critical voice was losing Her job and was being replaced by Love.

I realized that I am learning to Mother myself. This Mother within me loves me for who I am. She gives me good boundaries, but here's the kicker, she gives me good boundaries without judgment. Imagine that. I can make mistakes! I am free to be who I am! I don't have to do it perfectly! I can just shift, adjust, do things differently. I have more room to actually live now. And what a gift this Life is. I did not come here to just exist. I came here to LIVE! And it was hard to do that with a voice inside of me forcing me to live in a very small space called perfection. That voice has served me for some time. But it is time for her to move on. And time for Love. Mingle with me God. Mingle in my wrongness, mingle in my joys, mingle in my boredom, mingle in my loneliness, mingle in my peace. Mingle with all of me. Mingle with every part of me and of us. Amen.