Give it to ya Self
Lately, I’ve been big on rituals. Not the grand, candle-lit kind, but the ordinary ones—turning the mundane into something that glimmers, even for a moment. I want to witness my own life, to be present in the brilliance of this fucking experience. Life. Ritual doesn’t exist without awareness, attention, intention. Its heart doesn’t beat without honor. And honor, I’m learning, is built on the scaffolding of deep respect—especially for myself.
But how do you honor your own Self if you’re too afraid to feel what it is to be aware? If you haven’t faced yourself in the quiet, in the mess, in the mirror, how do you know what respecting your true Self even means? There’s no manual for this. No step-by-step. It’s trial and error, it’s simplifying, it’s standing in the middle of your own life and asking, “How does this feel?” It’s reading, listening, letting things resonate or fall away. It’s noticing what lifts you, what grounds you, and what gnaws at you after midnight.
I keep bumping into the things I’m attached to that hurt me—thought patterns, old ghosts in new relationships, the same lesson knocking on my door in a different disguise. But I celebrate the chance to try again. Rinse and repeat. Self-respect isn’t a finish line. It’s the willingness to keep showing up, to keep drawing the line, to keep closing the door when the boundary is crossed, even if your hand shakes as you do it.
To me, self-respect is boundaries. It’s moving my body like it belongs to me—liberated, unashamed. It’s standing wherever I am and gripping the earth with my toes, letting my hips and shoulders soften, recognizing that the real softening needs to happen in my mind, in my heart. It’s believing that we are both consumption and expression, and that the balance between what we take in and what we give back is a kind of prayer. It’s survival.
It’s questioning the path society has paved smooth and asking if it leads anywhere I want to go. It’s clearing the energetic sludge from my throat so I can speak what needs to be said, to stay in integrity with myself, with others. It’s watching my patterns like a hawk, not to shame myself, but to learn. It’s letting go of the shame when things don’t go The Way and leaning into what is actually My Way—nontraditional relationships, taboo topics, the shit people are afraid to feel in their own bodies. We can only de-shame it for others if we’ve done it for ourselves first.
It’s touching myself with love, with intention—filling my own cup first, not out of selfishness but necessity. Until I know how to love myself well, I’ll keep accepting crumbs and calling it a feast. It’s carving out space to flow, to be silent, to bore myself enough that the truth finally has room to walk in. You have to give it to yourself first. You can’t respect someone else wholly, truthfully, with integrity, until you do.
If you don’t practice curiosity with yourself, you’ll never master it with others. You’ll just find people who hold up mirrors to the things you haven’t faced. We show people how to respect us by demonstrating it first—by living it, not just talking about it.
Think of our ancestors, before language, before rules, before any of this. They had to show each other, in vulnerability and solidarity, how to be together—not for politics or points, but for survival. We’re still doing that, in our own ways. The least we can do is lean in while we’re here, stay open and curious, and learn the multitudes and simplicities of respect.
Know your values. Live them out loud—in how you spend your days, how you speak to yourself, how you show up when no one is watching. Lean into your own compass. This lease on life is no guarantee—it’s a god damn gift. Treat it like that. See how your experience changes.
