Valentine’s Day is all about love. Honestly it’s often about romantic love. That’s probably why it’s irritated me for years. Romantic love and commercialism. I’ve pretty much ignored it for quite some time now.
But recently I’ve been reflecting on just how important love really is to me. Love for friends and family, the love I feel for my kids and arguably the most important love of all…the love I feel for myself.
Believe me when I tell you that love for myself is the very hardest. I doubt you’ll be surprised, I think it’s the hardest for most of us. And yet it’s absolutely the most important love of all. We all know this, in fact, it’s so well known it’s sort of a self-help cliche at this point. But I’ve been really digging into this self love business lately and I think I’ve discovered something important.
How much I love myself is directly related to how much I allow others to love me. I don’t mean that I can control how much others love me but I do think I’m in charge of how much I allow that love in, how much I feel it. I think of it like driving in my car and rolling down the window. I can crack the window and get a little bit of air in the car or I can roll the window all the way down and get a lot more air in the car. The wind is the same whether the window is up or down. THe difference is how much air I’m letting in.
I’m coming to believe the same is true for love as well. The more I learn to love me and know and feel I deserve love, the more I feel the love of others in my life. I don’t think it’s because they love me any differently but I’m finally able to allow that love in on a more regular basis.
Self love is not selfish; you cannot truly love another until you know how to love yourself.
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Loving me more looks like resting when I’m tired without judgment. It looks like giving myself credit for things I do well as well as recognizing things I’d like to do better. It looks like talking kindly to myself the way I’d talk to others rather than using harsh, mean and self-critical language. It looks like treating myself to things that bring me joy…just because.
So this year for Valentine’s Day I’ll be celebrating a new kind of love. Love for growth, love for healing, love for….
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