Relationships

In college I was in a women’s spirituality group with five other women. We met weekly and spent the first 10-15 minutes in silence, letting go of the chaos around us. Our leader always led us into the meditation with the words: Breathe in the good for yourself. Breathe out the good for others. These words take me so many places, but most importantly back to the essence of who I want to be.

When I remember college, I don’t go to a world of academia. I go to a time in my life when I had the freedom to explore myself. A time when I made some of my closest friends and was forced to lean on people other than family. By leaving home, I had to find new people and I found a group of incredible women. These are not the only people in my life whom I consider my support system, but they represent the type of people I want to surround myself with.

The people who will love me at my best…and at my worst. The kind of love I want to reciprocate.

I want to be the person who approaches life with a positive attitude, with grace, with love and with hard work while remaining authentic to myself. To get caught up in everything around, is easy; gossip, fashion, technology, TV, facebook and money are seductive tools pulling my attention. To step away and take a moment, to breathe, to see what I truly value and what or who needs my attention can take more effort, but feels more rewarding.

Breathe in the good for yourself. Breathe out the good for others.