Happy Valentine’s Day after! What a great excuse to revel in love. All love, self-love, gay love, straight love, kinky love, friendship love and the universal love y’all, love. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about self-love. And no, I’m not talking about sitting around reading “Shades of Grey” in the bath or what ever else floats your boat in that department. I’m talking about the kind of self-love that wakes you up in the morning feeling excited to see who you get to be with others today. How do you get to experience yourself? What in you is clamoring for expression?
Seems most all of us got “a thing” we carry around like a little piece of stone chaffing at our heart. We were raised in this culture, in this particular time period, where in so many ways, we are still coming out of the dark ages of repression or the negation of self. Thinking about ones own family in the context of the social/historical continuum, it’s no freaking wonder we are challenged in varying degrees to accept ourselves as simply being, okay. And the bottom of the bottom line of self-love is just that…feeling okay. And maybe even better than okay with who you are in THIS moment. Self-improvement may be a great goal to have, but what about right now?
That’s where the reveling comes in. Taking time to bask in the great after glow of the love fest Valentine’s Day represents (minus the Hallmark cards and romantic delusions). Where love is love and it’s all yours to experience. I picture my sweet pooch, rolling around on his back, totally happy to be his funny little dog self. How good it feels to be a dog! Nothing better than that! Did he have to do anything to deserve feeling loved? Nope, he just had to show up and be a dog. What if we didn’t have to do anything to feel loved besides simply being here?
Imagine celebrating yourself for no good reason other than there is no one else on this planet like you, with your special assortment of cells, experience, personality, gifts and abilities. Truly, there isn’t another one on this entire Earth just like you. What is it about you that makes you so uniquely you? If you’ve never written a love letter to yourself, I’d encourage you to try it on for size. Now. What would it feel like to leave off the judgments and have your self a little party? To get out the horns and whistles and blow them on your own behalf and revel in the noise you make? Hummm? Might be even better than chocolate. Just saying…
Seems most all of us got “a thing” we carry around like a little piece of stone chaffing at our heart. We were raised in this culture, in this particular time period, where in so many ways, we are still coming out of the dark ages of repression or the negation of self. Thinking about ones own family in the context of the social/historical continuum, it’s no freaking wonder we are challenged in varying degrees to accept ourselves as simply being, okay. And the bottom of the bottom line of self-love is just that…feeling okay. And maybe even better than okay with who you are in THIS moment. Self-improvement may be a great goal to have, but what about right now?
That’s where the reveling comes in. Taking time to bask in the great after glow of the love fest Valentine’s Day represents (minus the Hallmark cards and romantic delusions). Where love is love and it’s all yours to experience. I picture my sweet pooch, rolling around on his back, totally happy to be his funny little dog self. How good it feels to be a dog! Nothing better than that! Did he have to do anything to deserve feeling loved? Nope, he just had to show up and be a dog. What if we didn’t have to do anything to feel loved besides simply being here?
Imagine celebrating yourself for no good reason other than there is no one else on this planet like you, with your special assortment of cells, experience, personality, gifts and abilities. Truly, there isn’t another one on this entire Earth just like you. What is it about you that makes you so uniquely you? If you’ve never written a love letter to yourself, I’d encourage you to try it on for size. Now. What would it feel like to leave off the judgments and have your self a little party? To get out the horns and whistles and blow them on your own behalf and revel in the noise you make? Hummm? Might be even better than chocolate. Just saying…