Prayer for Loving Ourselves

A Prayer for Loving Ourselves - Week of July 24, 2023

Quirky, delighted and amazing Grace, may we keep practicing this daily effort of loving ourselves. May we have the wisdom to practice self-compassion when we would offer compassion to others and also notice how much easier compassion for others becomes when we can have compassion for ourselves. May we dwell in the here and now to catch our breath and attend to our dreams and find wonderment in the beauty unfolding as someone creates something joyful and just and new. May we love ourselves enough to take ourselves by the heart and hand and go play, to take breaks before we are so brittle a butterfly alighting on us causes us to shatter, to bring snacks if we need snacks and definitely a bottle of water for the daily round can be terribly parching. May we love ourselves enough to have places we can cry and gnash our teeth, and good friends we can kiss our teeth around and let go of all that is wrong as we kiss it goodbye and shake ourselves in dancing together. May we love ourselves enough to go ahead and be wrong, to make mistakes, to fail, to be late, to struggle, to do this stuff of being a person in a busy world that has a towering list of demands and expectations and gates being kept as though we are not people but dragons. May we love ourselves enough to be dragons when we need, curling protectively around our bellies and letting others know with smoke and with roaring and beating of wings that no, they can take their shaming and hating over to the cosmic laundry and get their own stuff clean without having to put that over on us. And thank you. And have a good day. And please. These are all words and wishes we can use with ourselves, as we love ourselves in ways many in the world can love us and ways they have not yet invented. Amen.