The Power of Love….Self-Love

How much do you really love yourself? Do you love yourself enough to put your wellbeing above others? Do you love yourself enough to remove yourself from relationships and situations that no longer feel good? Do you love yourself enough to trust you and not need validation from others? Do you?

More than 10 years ago, my answer to all would have been a big NO. I didn’t love myself. In fact there was a lot about me I didn’t care for at all. I wished I was different, often. I wished I was smarter. I wished that I was taller, prettier and thinner. I wished that I was a better daughter, sister, friend and especially wife. I wished that I was stronger and didn’t get hurt as easily as I did. I wished I didn’t cry as easily as I did. And to ensure nobody knew how much about me I didn’t like, I faked it. I made fun of myself before others could. I acted strong, and acted as if I wasn’t hurt, and would hold that resentment in until I couldn’t anymore. When activated, that resentment would come out in a variety of ways, usually in full-on anger. I would beat myself up afterwards, not liking the anger. I was a perfectionist, which really was code for being so fucking afraid of being wrong, being yelled at, being told I wasn’t good enough, that I would take forever to get things done or never would.

Since I felt all of this about me, I didn’t trust me. I would talk to a lot of people about decisions, thinking they knew better than I did about my own life. So many times I deferred to others for my decisions, even if they didn’t realize I did so. My inability to love me was at the root of both my divorces.

I attracted men who didn’t fully love themselves, but I thought I could. I could build them up. I could love them into loving themselves, I thought. I was so wrong. I couldn’t love them the way they needed, I loved them the way I needed. And they couldn’t love me the way I needed, I didn’t let that in and they weren’t capable.

Until I could completely understand me and then love me, I couldn’t completely love another and they certainly couldn’t love me. I remember someone sharing the book “The 5 Love Languages,” with me thinking that would help my second marriage. It can if both parties are willing to listen and learn. Neither of us could. We both assumed that we were okay and it was the other person who needed to listen and learn. We weren’t in it together, neither of us loved ourselves enough. We obviously didn’t love each other enough either. But it was this relationship that brought me to rock bottom and allowed me to begin to learn to love myself.

Fourteen years later, I fully love and trust me. That long and circuitous route was filled with self-healing; becoming so aware of who I was and who I wanted to be that I could forgive myself and others, losing judgment and taking radical responsibility of what I own(and what I don’t) and really connecting to my body, creating space and truly hearing my inner wisdom.

Self-love is the greatest love of all. It allows you to play full out trusting in yourself, your intuition and what you want. It forces boundaries and it is allows you to keep who you are as you impact and help others.

This is the power of love.