I am the moon.

At some point in the last couple of years, I was talking to a friend - feeling overwhelmed with how my losses had affected my personality and my ability to socialize, the idea of how people perceived me, and how unfair it all felt. I kept naming specific people who in my mind were making me feel small or unworthy.

I remember her saying to me, “Molly, that person is not your reference point.” She said it on more than one occasion, and I tried my best to take it in, to not let my ideas of how others see me to cloud my own sense of self.

And yet, it is such a deep habit, isn’t it? We often choose things, people, groups, outside of ourselves to check how we are. We want people to see us a certain way, and when they don’t it can be frustrating, even maddening. We want people to recognize our goodness, our worth, we want people to see our humanity, our totality, and when they don’t, or won’t, it is easy to take that in and think that it is we who have to change. We have to get them to see us in the way we want them to, so that we can see ourselves in the way we want to.

When I think about my friend’s words now, it finally feels so clear. I spent a lot of time suffering by reflecting on - even guessing - how others saw me, how they treated me, and in those most vulnerable of times, allowing them to become my reference point. How THEY see me is how I am, so I need them to change the way they feel about me, so I can change how I feel about me.

These past years have been a lot of work. I moved to a new place and left my community behind, I lost too many people I love, and I went through a divorce. I lost so much of my self, that I looked to others to reflect and reaffirm myself, my worth, my very existence. What I know now is that a bit part of our work is making ourselves our reference point - we know who we are, we know all of our sides, and we know we are just one perfect and imperfect human!

Back in October, I had the opportunity, with a finally settled nervous system, to first be with community at the Grünewald Guild for our contemplative retreat, and later to be at the Texas Yoga Retreat, with old and new friends, teaching, learning, laughing, being.

The contemplative retreat included the full moon, and while the moon was waning by the time I got to the Texas Yoga Retreat, it was still huge and orange and giant in the sky and served as an anchor of awe for all of us, a talisman for entering into the transformative energy of fall and the coming winter.

As I took in that gorgeous moon, surrounded by people I love and people who love and esteem me back, I had a powerful realization. The moon is exactly the same, essentially, all the time. Whether it is full, waxing, waning, eclipsed, visible, hidden, is a matter of our perception of it, the angle we see it from, the reference point we start from. But the moon as its own reference point doesn’t change. It just is.

Of course where we are in relationship to the moon may affect us in different ways. We might forget about the moon when it is hidden, we might feel its pull and wake up in the middle of the night when it is full, we might be especially moved by a sliver of a moon, especially if it has a bright star or planet nearby. But the moon is the same.

In that same way, where others are in relationship to us, or us to them also might affect us. They might love us a lot, and that makes us feel one way, or they might not know us at all, or they might have a poor impression of us, and we may feel some way about that. The trick then is to simply realize that we are like the moon. We are always the same. Our essence is unchanging. And when we realize that we are making someone else our reference point and realizing that we are now seeing ourselves in a particular way, especially a way that hurts us, we can remember that that person is not our reference point. We are our reference point! But that can take practice, and a settled nervous system, and even some outside reinforcement. We can recall all of the people who love us, admire us, esteem us, value us, and if we have to make someone other than ourselves our reference point, we can start with that, we can start by flipping the script. If we are going to choose someone’s idea of us as our reference point, why not start with those people? Why give more weight to those who’s idea of us feels hurtful or frustrating than to those who feel affirming?

This can be an intermediary step as we finally learn, that we are like the moon. We are full, we wax and wane, we hide, we shine, but essentially we are always the same. Flawed, perfect, loved and loving. We become our own reference point and no longer need either the accolades of others, nor are we affected by the opinions of others. Then we can also fully delight in all that love that is in our life and allow that to lift us up when we are feeling low. It becomes a beautiful too for self-love versus a need - that we are only valuable if we are valued by others.

I leave this thought with an idea for a practice. I have a very consistent journaling and meditation practice - I feel like there is a truly magical alchemy that occurs when these two activities are paired. Try this: take some time to write down all the people who love you, who have loved you, who have looked up to you, who have made you feel celebrated. Then read your list a couple of times before sitting in silence and allowing all that love, all that knowing to permeate your cells. May this provide an armoring and antidote for those days you might, like me, lose yourself in other people’s harmful or hurtful words, actions or perceptions. You are so deeply loved. If your reference can’t be you right now, let it be them.