For weeks I’ve been feeling stuck in my mind, wondering what is best for me and what isn’t. I felt lost within myself, and confused about what path I should be taking. Until one of my close friends texted me multiple times to take a “Full Moon Meditation” in my small college town of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania at Happy & Healthy Wellness studio. Taking a 10-minute walk into town at 8:00 pm on a Wednesday seemed like the last thing I wanted to do. But to my surprise, it was just what I’d been needing for the last month.
For the last 30 days, I’ve been discovering a new part of myself. Someone that I haven’t seen in years. Someone who fully prioritizes their own needs. Putting others before me has been my biggest strength but also my biggest downfall in life. After leaving a relationship that I never thought I would have the strength to be able to, I found myself feeling like an unknown version of me. I had not yet been able to put my well-being before others because this essentially would lead to hurting someone else. I was willing to sacrifice my mental health to protect others from being hurt. Until I did the impossible and left. Now I’m sitting 30 days later in a Yoga studio pouring my heart out to 4 older women I had never met. It was the most selfish I had been in a full year and it was liberating.
During this class, we started with mediation where I had to be completely still. Still with every thought and memory. I let each thought and memory flood in while knowing that it will pass. After the meditation, we were asked to write down a phrase that is holding us back from becoming the best version of ourselves. At first, I felt an overwhelming amount of shame that flooded over my body as the phrase “I don’t deserve healthy love” raced in my mind. Why was I so ashamed of feeling that I deserve better than what I had always known?
Maybe I was ashamed of myself for never realizing that the people I loved were not the people that deserved to love me. When the class asked for someone to share, I admittedly raised my hand. “The phrase that I’ve been holding is ‘I don’t deserve healthy love’” the class stared at me with kind and understanding eyes. I felt the energy of every woman in the room. For once, I felt accepted for a phrase I was always so ashamed of. The leader of the class replies “I’ve been dealing with the same phrase as well; you’re not alone.” A woman about 10 years older than me was in the same spot I was. I thought to myself, she does deserve healthy love. So why was I so hard on myself for the same phrase she was also feeling? These few women in the class seemed like strangers but by the end of the class we were all connected in many ways.
I left the class with an overwhelming feeling of community and self-acceptance. The guilt I was so accustomed to slowly faded away that evening as well. I had put myself first in a way where I didn’t feel forced to, but I truly wanted to. On my way home I watched the full moon above me. The full moon glistened through the whole sky and created a warm feeling within me. Almost as if it had been watching me this whole time. Like the women in the class who seemed so distant and strange to me before the class started, the moon also seemed so far away before tonight, when I realized it was right there with me all along. Guiding me on my path and holding my hand all the way home.