Last week I sent out my summer newsletter with this simple paragraph:
This is a period of great change. I am going through a lot of changes and the people who surround me are too.
I would encourage you to…
Be good to yourselves.
Do what YOU need.
Trust yourself.And most all, enjoy your summer and have fun! 🙂
So what about you?
Have you recently experienced change?
Are you being good to yourself?
Are you doing what YOU need?
Are you trusting yourself? ….
And most importantly, are you enjoying your summer and having fun?!
I really hope you are.
As a barista at one of my favorite coffee shops in the city told me this spring, “Emily, the only constant in life is change” after I had him break a twenty-dollar bill for me because I wanted change.
Deep thoughts for a coffee shop barista, right?!
But isn’t that why you go to coffee shops?! To nourish your soul and mind?
That is why I go.
Coffee shops are a place for me to find peace in my sometimes crazy life in this crazy city,. To treat myself as the magically beautiful and special person I know I am. Radical self-love. And going to coffee shops is one simple way I am good to myself. An important thing to do when experiencing change…
Change means endings and beginnings….
Last month, I graduated from college. (Yay!) All my family came to celebrate me walking across the stage to get my diploma, it was a very, very proud moment that filled me with gratitude for myself and all the people in my life who had made that moment possible. In fact, despite being a professional ballet dancer and completely used to being on stage with all eyes on me, I was so overwhelmed with emotion I don’t remember that walk across that stage. This was a joyful ending and a happy (although a bit uncertain) symbolic beginning of the rest of my life. The start of my post degree, post college life.
But then, some endings are painful. Right after my graduation, my boyfriend broke up with me. And as I wrote last week, “[heartbreak] leaves you feeling like you have been run over by a truck, a very, very large monster truck.” But still there is beauty, gratitude and most of all hope in this experience. And with every ending there is a beginning, the beginning of the rest of my life! Now I get to love myself, work on myself, and wait.
Change also means closings and openings….
My favorite yoga studio in the city closed last month. I did a week-long intensive (to use up my class card 🙂 ) during the studio’s last week. It was magical to see all the love, passion, and experience that had filled that place. But with this sad closing comes the exciting opening of a new studio run by my favorite teachers in September. So in this too there is hope, love, passion and the opportunity for new experiences.
“When one door closes, another door opens…” – Alexander Graham Bell
So, in the meantime between closings and openings and between endings and beginnings I would urge you to find the space to do what YOU need.
….take a long bath, go to the beach, take a walk in the park among nature, cook delicious food, spend time with your friends, go to parties, love yourself, push yourself with lovingkindness, dance, skip, play, nurture and nourish your heart and soul…
And remember to keep growing, continuing to put one foot in front of the other along the never-ending journey of life, remembering with every sunset there is a sunrise. And never stop trusting yourself.
In fact, try trusting yourself MORE! (it’s possible!)
With so much love and light I’d like to hear your thoughts in the comments below – xo
Emily Anton 