The summer has finally arrived in the Algarve and I’m stretched out on the beach, reveling in the space before the tourists arrive and pack onto the beach like sardinhas baking in the sun.
Right now, the beach is mine.
“Come in the water with me,” Olly says. Predictably.
I know it’s cold. The water is always cold here in Portugal, and unless it’s boiling hot, I’m not interested.
Right now, the weather is perfect. Warm sun, light breeze, just right.
Besides, I’m wearing the pink bikini I bought for pole class and feel a bit self-conscious about the walk from my towel to the water. Blame the conservative American in me.
“Just put your feet in,” he insists.
I sigh and let him drag me off the towel.
Olly dives right under the waves. I step in ankle-deep, shivering. That’s as far as I’m going.
After watching Olly swim for a bit, I head back to my towel.
An older man, maybe in his seventies, looks over and asks, “Is the water cold?”
“Too cold for me,” I laugh, hurrying back to my towel.
A few minutes later, Olly rejoins me. “That old man was eyeing you,” he says.
“He asked about the water.”
“Yeah. After he was staring at you.”
The bikini has become a point of contention between us. Olly would love nothing more than for me to wear a Brazillian thong and go topless, like many women do on the beach here in Europe. I’m just not comfortable exposing that much of…me…to strangers.
I know my discomfort is a story, but it’s one I’m not ready to give up just yet.
On the other hand, there are plenty of old stories I’m ready to throw into a dumpster, douse with gasoline, and toss in a lit match.
Like the story that says it’s not okay to ask for what I really want.
Or the one that tells me to keep my mouth shut because I might say the wrong thing. In Portuguese or English.
Especially those stories about what’s appropriate or expected by Other People™.
Burn, baby burn.
I think they should tell us that it’s totally okay to hold onto our stories as long as we want to keep them. As long as they work for us.
I won’t earn an achievement badge for strutting across the beach in dental floss swimwear without blushing.
There’s never any pressure to let your stories go. But…
If there’s something holding you back (that isn’t actually holding you back because it’s a story someone told you a long time ago that has never been true, and can’t actually hurt you or stop you from doing anything)…
…and it’s also one you’d love to incinerate like last week’s garbage…
I can help.
There’s such glorious freedom to be found in no longer letting old thought-stories invisibly run your life.
Especially the ones that keep you from:
speaking,
creating,
asking,
loving,
trying,
living.
If there’s a story you’re finally ready to stop fitting your life around, you can book a DragonHeart Portal conversation here:
https://portal.stephdragonheart.com/dragonheartconversations
Yours in love and play,
Steph 🐲❤️
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