DESERVINGNESS

A lesson in learning, I was deserving of the beauty around me…

It was my first morning in Italy. I was walking ‘home’ after having coffee at what is (in my opinion) the cutest cafe in Positano. I was still feeling unsettled, and agonizing over how much I packed and why I didn’t leave more stuff behind. How would I manage with my luggage all summer? I was endlessly beating myself up over just about everything I did in planning to come to Europe

…when I stopped and looked out this view (this very view). When suddenly, I didn’t care who was around, I stopped, put my hands over my heart and closed my eyes. I started to cry. I think I couldn’t compute the beauty. This fast change of scenery from Amsterdam to the Almafi Coast was all so surreal and hard to take in.

But in this moment…

I took it ALL in.

This was it. After years of longing to be in this country, here I was standing in one of the most beautiful places in all of Italy…and I felt this voice say -it’s ok to deserve this.

I’d done enough. I was “enough”. It was OK to accept this as my life. I didn’t have to prove I deserved to be here, that I earned this moment in time…it was all just here for the taking and the more I was in my head about all I didn’t do right, the more I was stopping myself from fully receiving this moment. All I had to do was be present, and be grateful.

We often don’t think we deserve things when they get good, yet have no problems accepting the ‘not so good’ times, and take that as the default setting in life. But whenever I experience moments like this I always think back to a quote I heard Gabrielle Bernstein, when she said….“How good are you willing to let it get?”.

You are deserving of beauty
I hope you always remember that,
What you see on the outside
Is only a reflection of the love you have on the inside...

Let it manifest in seas of blue, flowers, sunrises, and sunsets,
the smell of lemons in the air and the sound of waves crashing upon the shore...

for this is

La dolce vita