The degree to which I enjoy life, is the degree to which I let myself enjoy life.
I realized this recently when I was reflecting on how I experience the world so differently based on how I am feeling in my body. The events and factors are the same; it’s my perspective and relationship to the events that differs.
This isn’t physical, either, but more a felt sense. I was looking through old photographs from moments where I knew I wasn’t feeling great about how I looked, what I was wearing, etc., and I felt such compassion for that past version of me. She was in Mykonos, with some of her closest friends, wearing the cutest outfit on a sunny day by the sea, and all she could think about was how she maybe was gaining weight, how she didn’t look “right.”
And I remind myself now, even as I write this, that the only was I can “fix” or change that past situation is in the present, and by choosing to give present me more appreciation, more compassion and more ease in each moment. Because why am I not allowing myself to feel good and enjoy, a cornerstone human experience of which we are all innately deserving? How empowering, too, that it is in within my power to choose and determine that.