Your Poetry Oracle: Week of April 10th

A pair of poems to inspire the week ahead

Welcome to the Self Love Confidential Poetry Oracle, where the universe sends you the message you need to hear by way of a poem from one of my books. I’ll select the weekly poem (or in some cases, pair of poems) by trusting my intuition, the very thing I hope you’ll start to do as a member of this self love community.

Lately, I get this earthquake-like feeling inside my body. Deep in my chest, it makes me feel like a hollow drum as it reverberates through me. At first I ignored it, but it keeps tugging at me for attention: like a phone on vibrate that never stops buzzing no matter how many times you silence the call. So now I’ve started to pay attention to when the shaking starts:

Unsurprisingly, the tremors commence when I’m on social media, and I happen upon the account of someone I admire, and they’re doing something admirable. Apparently comparison isn’t just the thief of joy — it’s also the thief of inner peace.

So I now know the symptom (shaking), and I know the trigger (social media), but what is the source? As usual, for me it comes down to my thoughts. When I’m on social media and I get triggered, it’s usually because there’s a part of me that is thinking, “I should be doing better, I should be better. I am a failure. I am not doing enough. I am not enough. I am unrealized potential. Everyone else has figured out how to make this work, but me.”

A stream of thoughts so negative, so suffocating, so limiting, so painful, that the thoughts have taken over not just my mind, but my body. Buzz, buzz, buzz, my heart threatened by this chainsaw of anxiety.

And that’s why this poem is so important — for me, and I hope for you:

I used to feel like a boat,
completely at the mercy of
an ocean of thoughts that beat
against me one wave at a time.

Now I realize
I am not the boat
I am the ocean.

Self Love Poetry, 86 (Thinkers).

Because we are not our thoughts, and while we often default to letting them be in charge, they are not inherently sovereign. And while I wrote this poem back in 2020, even I need to remind myself: I am not the boat, I am the ocean. I am not at the mercy of my thoughts — I am their source. Which means I can learn to choose them, and so can you. Beyond that, I will remember that my body is always on my side, even when my thoughts are not. If I’m vibrating with anxiety, it means I need my own attention. The earthquakes are not here to harm me — they’re here to wake me up and save me from my thoughts.

Self Love Poetry, 87 (Feelers).

The next time I feel a quake coming on, instead of panicking, I’m going to hold my ground. I will remind myself, I am the ocean, which means I am powerful, abundant, and in charge. Instead of feeling less than, I will remember: envy is simply the mirror of desire. Where I vibrate is where I want to be. Once a trigger for anxiety, now a guide for setting intentions.

Do your thoughts ever cause you little earthquakes of anxiety? How can you reframe your thoughts and quiet the storm?

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