Break the Chain...

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.   It is a day when the world celebrates Love in all its various forms.   Love can be healing, fun-filled, light, divine when expressed unconditionally.  Valentines Day today has taken on a different route - it has become more consumer oriented and in that process people forget the true meaning of Love.   This piece today is about Loving yourself - if you cannot love yourself - you cannot love another. Loving yourself means looking at yourself with all your flaws, marks, imperfections and looking at all your beauty and still being able to say to yourself "I love you." I love for being you.   There is a letter by Victor Hugo that i still have framed and he talks about all the reasons that he loves this woman - and in that letter, there is not one quality  - it is just because - I love you because i love  you - and i have always found that so powerful - I want to ask people who are reading this to really take the time to reflect on that - do we love ourselves enough?

Which brings me to another topic - Co-incidentally, tomorrow   marks the 15th anniversary of celebration of V-Day, a movement to end violence against women worldwide.  V-Day was founded by Eve Ensler, creator of the Vagina Monologues - her advocacy for spreading awareness on this important issue has spread worldwide and today you have women, men and children from all over the world looking to work on the same issue.   She uses media, poetry, dance, song to work on this message and if you haven't been to a V-Day even i would encourage you to do so.    

One Billion and Rising is a powerful website with a mind-blowing documentary as well as videos and songs that encourage women to rise up and dance to break the chain of violence.   The videos are amazing...

http://onebillionrising.org/pages/video-downloads

There is a  paragraph in the song that says...

This is my body, my body is holy
No more excuses, no more abuses
We are mothers, we are teachers,
We are beautiful, beautiful creatures

How beautiful is that - if only we as women would take the time to really believe that and begin to start taking the steps to give us the self-respect that we deserve.   There comes a point in our lives where we have to open up our eyes and see the reality in front of us if we find ourselves in the same situation over and over again - and in this context i mean a relationship - do we see negative patterns in our relationship - are we being hurt - do we fear being alone - do we realize that if we have children that our children will follow in our own footsteps - our souls need to be awakened and so do our eyes - the extreme end of it is violence, there is no excuse for violence - this is no way blaming the victim at all - but it is a call for those out there to wake up.   If you or someone you know is in that situation-Do that for yourself on this valentines day.      As a society, we need to come together to break the chain - and if we don't come together, the chain cannot be broken - Taking it a step further is that no matter how alone we are, we need to realize that we are not alone - there is a whole community of sisters, mothers, friends, strong female role models - everyone that we need to reach out to in order to break the cycle.   And i think that is why the theme of V-day this year struck a chord in me - It is urging us to break the chain methaphorically by joining others through the power of dance and song.     So often when in love - we forget ourselves and we end up losing ourself all to gain that love, and gain that attention - but sometimes that comes with a price.   So on this Valentines Day dance and break that chain - sing and break that chain - to break the chain - the initial journey is like going through hell but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.      

A Journaling Prompt for you :   Write a Letter to Your Self - Write out all the reasons you love yourself and what makes you happy about you.        Happy V-Day!!!