Sixty- Second Invitation

 

            What Are the Benefits of The Marrying Yourself Journey? 

What Are the Benefits of The Marrying Yourself Journey?

People often ask me this exact question.  And its such a logical practical question!  And, I want to respond with an equally practical logical answer! But honestly, I don’t know if I can.  Because the question itself makes it sound like we are talking about a workshop or a course and the truth is that I don’t experience the “MYJ” as either.  Although it is in a format that resembles a course, it is something bigger and more profound.  For me, and also others, I call it ‘life changing” or “earth plate shifting.” 

Just by making the commitment to oneself that is called forth to embark on this journey invokes a certain shift in consciousness that states to oneself that you matter.  A change occurs from the ground level up as soon as you sign up. For me, it was truly a turning point, shifting my energy from a horizontal pull, (defining myself by how others responded to me,) to a sense of being vertical and inwardly connected, (defining myself from inside out.) The profundity doesn’t lesson with time and nor can it be taken away or diminished by others. 

When you sign up for the journey that leads you into engagement and then marriage with yourself, you are intentionally placing yourself behind the drivers wheel, owning the responsibility for your own quality of life. 

Imagine what it would we be like if we were raised as children knowing that when we grow up into adulthood, we marry ourselves.  What if we  conceptualized our weddings to ourselves ever since childhood?  How would it be if we watched all the adults in our lives when we were kids marry themselves and celebrate their self-love? What would be different if   we were raised to know that the primary source of love is within ourselves and it is this love that we first anchor into, commit to, and marry… 
Imagine…   

We would learn that it is natural and healthy to channel the love to ourselves that we usually bring to others.  Similar to the demonstrations on airplanes of how the parent first places the oxygen mask on oneself before helping others, we learn to source love beginning with ourselves.   

The Marrying Yourself Journey delivered me to feeling at home in myself and with myself in a way that I did not know was possible.
The act of taking responsibility for myself and my needs, to truly treat myself as if I know that I matter and deserve to experience the best of life, to experience loving care, to be grounded in self-respect, protected with healthy boundaries and the power of voice and action, to nurture my spirit, to be comfortable in my own skin and love my own company…. All of this, I believe I can say, are the benefits of the MYJ.  Granted, I took my commitment to marry myself very seriously very to heart.  Just like I would have with another person.   

The Commitment Mudra Flow, a flow of body movements and invocations, is the back bone of the Marrying Yourself Journey. The actual experience of the Commitment Mudra Flow is the calling in these qualities, which helps us to embody  essence, are also the “benefits” of the experience.  The very experience offers the results. 

Self-esteem, self-compassion, self respect, self care, self kindness, self reliance, self empowerment, self love — these are the words we invoke, these are the benefits. 

The benefits of  the MYJ — for me — was the fact that this journey was my turning point in my codependency, never to go back in the same way. 

By taking the journey, the inner work I did with myself during my engagement as well as taking vows with myself on my wedding day became my foundation and translated into trusting myself as my own life energy source. 

I want to be clear that marrying myself has not stopped me from loving others and having another marriage with a loving partner in life.  Matter of fact, it has only helped me to be less afraid to love even bigger, to love even more fully and devotedly.

By being engaged to myself and marrying myself, I learn to be my most ultimate ally, which calls upon immense listening, allowing, including and bringing compassion and tenderness to myself. 

This active and conscious self-commitment deepens my trust in myself so that I find the boldness to go out loud with what is inside of me, to be authentic and to be courageous. 

Being married to myself is the action that truly antidotes codependency.  My inner kids are my responsibility to advocate for. 
My inner woman is mine to nurture so she feels beautiful and honored. 
My inner masculine helps me to count on myself, to be clear and direct as I courageously speak up for myself, and to manifest my heart desires into realities. 
My mental chatter is mine to tame and train so that my mind can be kind and I can hear its wisdom.
My inner Goddess calls to me to take time with Her  — Soul Time — to nurture my spiritually.


Because I am married to myself, I am grounded in the knowingness that I have what I need within myself. 
This grounding frees me to shamelessly lean into support and ask for help.  Because I am married to myself, I am so much less afraid — of others.  Because more important than trusting another is trusting myself. 
Do I trust myself to be with whatever occurs in life? 
Can I access enough of myself?
Am I rooted in myself? 
Am i trusting of myself to respond to what arises in life? 
If the answer is yes, then this means I am less afraid. 
This powerfully translates to mean —  I can love more. 

So, I would say that perhaps the biggest benefit of the Marrying Yourself Journey is that it expands one’s ability to love. It begins with oneself and from here, me with me, you with you, we are less afraid and susceptible to losing ourselves in loving someone else. 

By committing to the Marrying Yourself Journey, one learns how to be with the holes within oneself and  thus fill them, all in time, from inside out.  When we experience holes, we develop attachment styles that lead to suffering.  Anxious attachment, avoidant attachment and ambivalent attachment styles arise from not feeling whole. When we learn to take ownership of ourselves, we awaken to our sense of wholeness and look within instead of searching for someone outside of ourselves to fill those holes. We grow to occupy ourselves in deeper, more meaningful, conscious ways. 

The Marrying Yourself Journey includes so much of what I share with my clients in these thirty plus years of being a therapist. I first tried to communicate it through book form but I couldn’t make it experiential enough.  Through audios, videos and tapping into other artist’s creative works to help deliver the experience, I feel like each module offers a growth opportunity.

Along with the self-regulated experience (go at your own pace) is an opportunity to tap into a sense of community.  The option for connecting with others who are also on the journey from various parts of the county is available via zoom gatherings every week and serves to be an invaluable way of receiving support from others as well as sharing insights, where we get stuck and how we are changing.  It’s a powerful way for us to plug into good juice to keep going. 

As we grow to anchor into ourselves as the source of love and to embody love, we may discover that this self, my-self, is not separate from other selves and that this source within me is the same as in you and everyone else.

From the possibility of knowing our Oneness arises a deepening in reverence for all of life, which, on a universal level, may be the ultimate “benefit!” 

Marrying oneself makes loving oneself a very tangible and practical and growth-full experience. 

As we commit to this journey, we open to experiencing the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Our Social Media links have been a bit tricky to embed as links into this newsletter. So for the time being here is the names you can look up for the 'Marrying Yourself Journey' with the website and names for each platform: 

TIK TOK: @theheartgathering
Instagram: _devajoy
Website: themarryingyourselfjourney.com

Lovefully, 
Devajoy