An Act of Loyalty

"Movement invites attention, asks us to practice devotion to ourselves, not in a self-centered way, but as an act of loyalty.  Instead of abandoning ourselves, we can learn to inhabit ourselves." -- Denise Taylor

While traveling with my sister-in-law to Toronto last week, I had the chance to settle in on the balcony with a book during a few hours' downtime in the afternoon.  The book I had brought with me, Ordinary Magic: Everyday Life As Spiritual Path, is a compilation of writings by a variety of people who talk about various aspects of spirituality and how they are a part of everyday life.  It is an old favorite of mine that I flip through from time to time, and it is loaded with ideas for spiritual practice that are down-to-earth and feel relevant to the way I live my life and walk my path.

As I tend to do when re-approaching an old favorite, I took a deep breath, quieted my mind a bit, and opened the book to a random page, upon which the above quote by Denise Taylor appeared.  I flipped back and started reading the essay, Coming Home to the Body, in its entirety.  I loved what she had to say in her essay, and I wanted to bring out some thoughts I had, specifically about the quote above.

I've done enough spiritual work, met enough people (in person and online), and read (more than) enough books to know that a lot of people who are into personal growth stuff are trying to find the sweet spot between being totally self-sacrificing and being totally self-absorbed.  My observation is that most of us seem to lean toward one of these, or vacillate between the two depending on the context, personal history, and personality characteristics.  One of the things I have observed has to do with concern over being self-centered, especially with people who perhaps lean more toward being self-sacrificial but are feeling frustrated, resentful, used, or unhappy about this tendency.  

Sometimes, the magic is in the wording.  I really like how Denise Taylor talks about devotion to ourselves as "an act of loyalty."  Many of us are familiar with what it's like to be loyal to someone else.  Loyalty is about being on someone's side, about showing our support, our alliance with, our allegiance with someone or something.  I think that there is something to be learned by focusing our loyalty on ourselves and our spiritual lives. 

Learning to be self-loyal can be about being on one's own side.  It is about supporting ourselves, aligning with ourselves, forming an allegiance with ourselves and with a spiritual source of some sort, whether that source is our own basic personhood or a concept of a divine being.  This can be a starting point, perhaps, for people who struggle with befriending themselves and their own experiences.

This may be tricky to interpret, though, because it can be read through a filter that insists that loyalty to ourselves precludes loyalty to others.  This is not the point.  The point that I am trying to make here is that loyalty to ourselves can co-exist with loyalty to others, and that the two ultimately are not mutually exclusive.  When we're loyal to ourselves, we exist in the world as people of inherent worth and value.  We learn about ourselves and know ourselves well enough to be aware of our triggers and weaknesses while not over-focusing on them within the greater context of who we are.  We become real, whole people with quirks, foibles, strengths, and admirable qualities.  We lay off of the judgments, forgive ourselves, and take life a little easier.  This is where some of that "magic" in "Ordinary Magic" might come in.