In Marianne Williamson’s book, “A Return to Love,” she reminds us that our true essence is love and it never goes away. “Our love, which is our real self, doesn’t die, but merely goes underground.” Love, is our real self. I believe this is an absolute truth, but I also know that it can be easy to get disconnected from this truth, especially when we experience heartbreak, hurt, loneliness or even through our own voice of internal judgment. Do you believe that your true essence is LOVE? Do you think if you truly believed this, that would inform the decisions that you make with regard to relationships, self care or even boundaries? How would you answer the question about how deserving you are of love?
If you want to deepen your current love relationship or even desire to attract a supportive, reciprocal and lasting relationship, it begins with Loving Yourself. It isn’t cliche’, this is truth. If you don’t love yourself, you will wind up mirroring this in your love relationships. Like attracts like, so you might find yourself with a person who doesn’t really love him or herself. Self love, means valuing who you are. This means that you value your true -love self, that already exists. It doesn’t mean we are done growing or that self love is some sort of destination. For most of us this is a journey.
How do you do this? In my article for FLM from March 2017, I outlined a few ways to practice self love. Three key tips are to observe your self talk, treat yourself like a cherished friend and get help with “old programming.” Some of us have messages that we tell ourselves that are based on early conditioning and are totally contrary to cultivating self love. Make sure you are “feeding” yourself with positive and supportive messages to combat the old default (and often faulty) programming. As you direct your focus to your self talk, you may notice some pretty harsh messages or maybe even notice that there is an unloved part of you. Don’t blame yourself, remember this is a journey! Instead, practice loving this unloved, difficult part through compassion for yourself and an awareness that you are always growing and deepening your relationship with who you are.
Then, use your self awareness to believe in love and spread love. We all want to live in love. We all want to be loved and accepted. We are wired for it. Love melts defensiveness, love is a demonstration of genuine willingness to listen and attempts to understand with compassion. Bring this awareness with you to your relationship with yourself and to your relationship with others. If you aren’t aware, it is easy to get caught up in the dominant discourse of a competitive world. Awareness of the love you ARE and the love you want to demonstrate, allows you to make a choice to come from love in all that you do and in every interaction.
As Carrie Bradshaw from Sex in the City writes, “If you can find somebody to love the you you love, well that’s just fabulous.”
More Questions? I want to speak with readers of FLM. Simply email me at [email protected]. I look forward to meeting with you!