1000 Strands

Everything is connected

Posts Tagged ‘self care’

Prayer for Love

Posted by Nicole on October 9, 2015

A prayer for love and seeing. Of black cats and clean forks. A life full of Body full of Soul.

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Take a moment to notice your surroundings. Relax your jaw and your tongue. Feel the earth support your weight. Feel God support your spirit. 

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God, when I sit in this room, I can feel both alone and the opposite of alone.

I can be aware of the table and my coffee. I can feel the air moving in and out to my nose. There is a chair beneath me and a black cat walking back and forth around us all. My fingers still feel wet from washing breakfast dishes. 

I can choose to be aware of sensations. And in the choosing they are either a nuisance or a wonder. 

I can choose to be aware of You, too: The I Am, The Presence.  The One who is always here. I can choose to feel you in the air and in my bones. 

God, when I sit in this room, I can feel both alone and the opposite of alone.

I can choose to see you as separate from me. In this way, you are here and yet different from the “Me” I know. You are a loving relationship that requires space between us.  I pray and you come. I request and you give.

I can also choose to see you as essentially IN me. In this way, you are here as surely as I am here. You are a loving Presence in my cells that requires the connection with my own mind. Here, to love myself is to be loved by you. Here, to accept the body I am in, is to accept that this body is Us. Here, to pray for peace is to know that the peace is here waiting to be accepted already in my guts. To ask you to be with me would be like asking myself to go hang out sometime. You are here. You are more here in and with me and available to me than my own thoughts and emotions and needs. You are the beautiful, quiet option that I don’t always know how to pick.

Jesus, I have no choice but to believe you are here in whichever way I manage to choose. You are. YHWH – Presence.

Your bible is confusing. Your people are a mess. And yet, impossible as it seems, as real as this table or the lungs in my chest, You are here.

Sometimes I think you just want to be noticed. To be witnessed. I recognize the need in me to be noticed and I wonder if this is part of your image in me now – something holy.

I see You. In the trees. Bursting sap. Falling pinecones. Strong branches with kids hanging off them.

I see You. In the blue sky. Endless whispers. Wind from the atmosphere’s edges all the way down to my face.

I see You. In the people. Hand-holding. Laughter so hard they can’t open their eyes.  A sudden embrace.

I see You. In me. Skin upon blood, ligaments, muscles and bones. A heart that beats. A body that breathes. Hopes. Loves. Pain.

I see You in this body you made to fit this soul just right.

Sometimes love is just choosing to see.

 

What do you need to see with new eyes? | 1000strands.com

 

Read more of the Body full of Soul series HERE!

Body full of Soul

Posted in Beauty SOS47, Write 31 Days | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Think About Sex – Step One

Posted by Nicole on October 2, 2014

Day 1: How to have good sex? = Think about sex.

I don’t mean just “think about sex” like a soda erupting; shaking it up and then shooting sticky thoughts all over the place. (Those cans are small but they manage to cover everything when they explode. The same goes for sexual thoughts.)  No, no. I mean, think about sex in very specific ways: disciplined, new, brave ways.

First of all:

Who do you want to want to have sex with? (this is not a typo)

Who do you want to want to have sex with?  You may not want to have sex at all, especially if you do not like your own self (more on that soon). You may not want to have sex if you are angry with the person you’ve agreed to have sex with otherwise OR You may want to have sex with an inappropriate person.

Who do you need to start focusing your passionate + positive mental attention on?

 *****

Try This:

Name them. Write their name down in your own handwriting. Take time to form each letter. Imagine each letter as a part of them {their person + body} that you notice and trace.

Take the name of your spouse or beloved or even yourself and write it down.

This will move the image of them in your mind…  the thought of their existence, their soul, your history together… from your mind to your hand. Write their name in the physical world.

Notice how the thoughts in your head can connect to the actions of your body.  Notice how the movements can change and go fast or slow, hard or soft.  How did you write it? How could you write it differently a second time?  What if you wrote their name on your skin or asked them to write a meaningful word on you?

*****

There are so many things stuck to our skin {especially women}: thoughts and expectations and hurts… really, anything negative seems to stick like superglue and the positive things in life just slide right off. Women walk around the world with so many words on their skin, and usually those words are full of disappointment.

She comes to a moment in the night {or day} when all the stars have aligned and sex is about to happen … most likely… and as he reaches his hands to touch her skin, it’s not really her skin he makes contact with.  I mean, it’s her skin – but not the layer of her that connects to her soul.

There’s this tough, invisible layer of self-hatred and frustrations about life that covers almost every inch of our skin. This layer is impenetrable some days.  On those days, you may still have sex, but you don’t have sex that makes loving connections because you can’t touch each others’ vulnerable layers.

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So, where do we even start?  What do we do?

When your body feels like a disappointment and just a hand on your stomach or breast makes you flinch away?

When every dish you wash or sock you pick up is like angry armor you put on your skin that keeps you away from the person you want to love?

When your body has never had healthy pleasure just for pleasure’s sake and you have no idea where to start?

When you love your spouse, but you just do not like having sex?

*****

We will get to all of that hard stuff, but I know it helps me to start back at the beginning.  When it all feels overwhelming or confusing or frustrating, I sit down and start over. I let my brain and the rest of my body reconnect in a simple way. Try this exercise:

*****

Start here.

Make time to think about the one you love… in detail. Write their name. Write it a few times; write it like you are 14-years-old and falling in love. Feel each movement without judgment of “how” you are writing it (you perfectionist!).  Notice pressure and speed. Pray love into each specific part of their body as you write each specific letter of their name. Be present to how love can move from your brain to your fingers.

This is just the beginning.

 

 

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www.1000strands.com

Photos by Jennifer Upton www.byjenniferupton.com

Want to see more great pictures of life through the lens of beauty and attention?

 

Posted in Love and Making It, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 8 Comments »

Making Love

Posted by Nicole on November 27, 2013

“You sure do write about sex a lot.”

Yes. That’s true, but I didn’t expect this. I’ve never cared much either way about sex, honestly. It’s not on my mind that often… not that you’d believe me with all this Love and Making It talk. 

But something happened to me after my second baby was born and sex has become my yoga, my running, my self-care, my way back to loving my body and learning that my “self” is more than what is just in my head. I am not just a soul or an intellect. I am a body too.  And this body is good – as good and perfectly created as my soul. Sex has become a the way I grow as a human, a Christian, a woman. My body and soul are reuniting and getting to know each other.  This is why I keep talking about sex. I believe our bodies are good for way more than short bursts of pleasure from food or quick orgasm.  Our bodies are much wiser and complicated than we give them credit for on a normal day. 

Ask anyone who has a workout they absolutely love (a runner, a yogi…) and they will tell you how that exercise brings them joy and endorphins and knowledge and self confidence and health.

Movement. Courage. Vulnerability. Fun. Play. Appreciation.

This is sex. It’s not just mechanics.  We are making love. It’s not easy, but it should be fun. And it can grow us as humans, if we let it.  Growing in the areas that make sex great, also make life great. 

The keys to great sex are trust, bravery and love. 

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Sex is complicated, for sure.  No one has been handed a clear and grace-ful sexuality. Sex can be the opposite of freeing and loving if we are not careful.  We have to fight for it. We have to trailblaze through the jungle of confusion and false messages, fears and pride, hate and power-struggles. 

This is why I’ve started the LOVE AND MAKING IT series. This is why I talk about sex. This is why I’ve invited other brave, wise people to participate and share their struggles and triumphs in this area. We need each other’s permission to process and grow. We need each other’s safe spaces. This is a safe space to become fully human – body and soul.   Everything is connected.  1,000 Strands. 

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The LOVE AND MAKING IT Series:

 

(lovely guests)

Sarah Wheeler – Beauty and the Porn Beast

Esther Emery – Wild Girls Dancing

Abby Norman – Don’t Touch My Boobs

Jennifer Upton – Naked Truth

Tara Owens – The Crowd in the Bedroom

Candice Jones – Confessions

Robin Chancer – This is Intimacy

Ellie Kay – Never Been Kissed

(from Nicole)

For You, I Will

Tonight I Can

When Your Body is a Minefield

 

With many more to come from me and from other powerful writers…

 

Posted in Love and Making It | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

When Your Body is a Minefield

Posted by Nicole on August 3, 2013

LOVE and MAKING IT is a new series on sex and marriage, bodies and souls. It will be candid and sometimes messy.  It’s not just about having a great sex life; it’s about having a great body life. I want one of those.  Read at your own risk.

I have noticed something about myself. I recoil when my husband touches my stomach or my sides – especially when I am sitting.

I do not like my stomach as it currently is. I would sure like it to change shape, be different, go away. And to touch it… is an act of aggression against me.

So, when my husband makes a loving move towards me… you know the one… The loving one where he is making a move …

It pisses me off. I can actually feel anger rise up from somewhere deep.

“How dare you touch my stomach?!”

That’s not good for our relationship – when my body is a minefield. He’s just happily walking through a beautiful wonderland (known as my body) and **BAM** land mine explosion.

“Get your hands off my belly!” 

(I don’t actually say that. If I did, I am pretty sure he would fall over in fits of laughter.)

 

We have been married for fourteen years, my husband and me. 14 years. I am pretty sure he knows my body better than I do. I’m trying to ignore parts and he’s trying to know all of me. And he still loves me lots. So, what’s my issue?

Even when we have someone who loves us, it can be hard to accept ourselves. And it can be even more frustrating because there’s “no good reason”. I have a partner who loves all of me, so I should just be happy now, right?

((AND We all know my mom thinks I am beautiful!))

But, it never works like that. A husband or boyfriend can be an incredible advocate, support, encouragement, voice of truth… but they cannot fix you (as much as we could all cry ourselves to sleep listening to that Coldplay song). At the end of the day, whether we are single or married, we will not be healed until we accept our whole and always-changing selves.

This is actual self-acceptance I am trying for…
the kind where I accept into my reality a loving ownership of ALL of me.

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Love and Making it (small)

Most of us struggle to embrace our entire bodies and this really hurts our relationships.

It is a huge obstacle to our making of the love.

How can you enjoy someone else loving your body when you are so completely convinced
it’s not good enough?

There is a part of you that you have trouble with. There is a part of your body that you dislike, try to disguise and ignore at all costs…That part, when your husband or lover touches it… it makes you cringe.  Right? Does this happen to you? Is this real for you too?  It pulls you, not just “out of the moment” but actually, into a moment of anger or embarrassment.

For me, my days go by with my mind – my consciousness – pulling away from the parts of my body that it does not deem attractive or beautiful. I am hardly aware of them as I wash dishes, go to work, play with my kids, because they cause me emotional pain and I don’t like pain. So my mind does me the favor of pulling far away from any awareness of them.

Consequently, when my husband touches my stomach, it is processed as a negative act – pulling my awareness back to something I am trying to ignore.

If lovingly touching some part of my body is actually an act of violence or embarrassment to my mind, then it is incredibly difficult for me to playfully and deeply enjoy sex.

Magazines may sometimes say to focus on the parts of you that you do love; that is a great first step in a healing story. If you don’t like any of your bits and pieces yet, you need to pick ONE to like today. Pick one. And then in a day or two pick another. BUT that’s not the end of the story. The goal is to be whole people. WHOLE.

This is why I am advocating for accepting our entire selves as beautiful and worth loving. My poor little belly deserves love too.  This is grace, you know. Allowing the parts of us we are trying to hide, trying to ignore, wish were different… allowing those parts to be cherished openly and completely, by ourselves, by God, by a lover — that’s GRACE.

This is why I care about believing our own beauty. I am believing in a future where I am full of love and care for my whole self and you for your whole self.  It’s not just about sex, but it’s a damn good place to start.  In the end, this is about our body lives.

WHERE DO WE EVEN START?

Men:

Want to know why your wife shies away all of a sudden when you touch her? I can’t guarantee she is like me, but she might be.  She does not like parts of her; when you touch them and remind her, this can make her hesitant and confusingly angry.

Ask her where is a safe, good place to touch her. Ask her what her favorite parts of her body are and place your hands on those.

Girlfriends:

You need to love the parts you hate. Do whatever it takes. Paint pictures on them. Lay your own hands on them. Pray energy and love into them. One by one, deactivate your body’s land mines.

And then, if you are in a relationship, intentionally ask your Love to put his hands there in a way that comforts and emboldens you. Notice that you do not die. Notice that he is still turned on by the hope of making love to you. The pain you feel at acknowledging the things you struggle with, he does not feel. He feels attraction and excitement at getting to touch your body. Go with it.

If he’s a good man, further along down the road of seeing your beauty than you are… go with it!

Then, have a glass of wine and forget it all. Just freakin enjoy being alive and healthy and able to move.

Your beauty is like gravity. It is factual and powerful. So, at some point, stop thinking about it and let it work.

Love and Grace.

-Nicole

 

Posted in Beauty SOS47, Love and Making It | Tagged: , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Stop Hitting Yourself

Posted by Nicole on February 14, 2013

Stop throwing stones, please.

Stop throwing stones, please.

Walking around the world, feeling disappointed in yourself, is never fun.  It sucks, actually. And, I fully realize that many of you are just fine with your fine selves, but I have a sneaking suspicion that many of us are not…  Still not, even after looking through 100’s of motivational pins on Pinterest.

(it’s like dieting. i am not dieting when i read about diets. … and i am not actually feeling better about myself when I read how i should feel better about myself… you don’t lose weight by reading about losing weight…)

 

It feels impossible to hit the target in life – to reach that sweet moment of pure joyful success – when all you do is practice hitting yourself.

You learn to hit the target you aim at.

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“What’s wrong with me?”
“I wish I was different…”
“Why did I say that?”

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I know it’s the same for me as it is for some of you – The voices inside my head can be loud, demeaning, demanding.  All I can see is how I don’t measure up and I wish I did.  I’m guilty under the law.  So, I throw stones

………….. at myself.

Stoning: Execute (someone) by throwing stones at them.

We stone ourselves. Without a proper trial, we sentence ourselves to a painful execution.  Each nasty thought, a stone.  Each critique without care, a stone.

I pick up each rough, dirty stone – each rough, dirty thought – aim and throw.  Pick, aim, throw. Pick, aim, throw. Pick, aim, throw.

But, in the black-comedy turns of life, we are too close to ourselves to properly execute the guilty. I chuck a stone at my own head and it bounces off – painful but not deadly. Another. Another. Bruises form. Wounds appear and build on top of each other. It’s an incredibly slow, painful death.

Hundreds of stones thrown by me at me.

You learn to hit the target you aim at.

And, I’ve discovered that I spend entirely too much time aiming at myself.

(I say this to you as I say it to myself….)

It’s time to Stop it. Drop the stones. DROP IT.

What do you actually want to be good at?  Practice that!

Every time you catch yourself picking up a stone, drop it before you even aim to throw. Don’t spend your life practicing self-stoning. Stop hitting yourself.

You learn to hit the target you aim at. So… what target DO you want to hit?

Take long enough away from chucking stones to hear yourself answer the question. Give yourself time to answer, you jerk! 🙂 What do you want to aim at?

Start small. Focus and aim at getting out of bed and smiling at yourself in the mirror.  Maybe you just need to practice setting the rocks down before you are tempted to throw them.

Focus and aim at saying kind things to yourself and others.

Focus and aim at doing one thing each day without caring what you or anyone else thinks about how you did.

Or, if you’re ready, go BIG. Focus and aim at a life-long dream.

I can promise you will get better at what you practice, so

Practice what you want to be good at.

 

Everything else… DROP IT.

 

Thank you & you’re welcome,

Nicole

 

 

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