Brave Love

The truth of the matter is: sometimes it is really hard to love yourself.

Sometimes, you wake up and nothing in your closet fits.

Sometimes, you get triggered and respond by yelling and screaming and stomping around… and then panic about being unlovable… which makes you feel even less lovable.

Sometimes, people are mean to you for no reason, and you internalize it as though you are inherently flawed.

Sometimes, people are mean to you for a very good reason – that you wish you could take back and you constantly run over the details in your mind.

Sometimes: You don’t get the job. They don’t call you for a second date. You spill coffee all down your shirt before a big meeting. Your bank account is overdrawn. Your children are screaming non-stop. Your sweetheart leaves, for good.

Sometimes you believe you are unlovable. 

But, I want you to stop for a moment and think about the people in your life that you truly love. I’m talking about the kind of love that is able to withstand a bad day or a string of bad days or a year of bad days.

The kind of love that is big enough and brave enough to say:

I love you, but I don’t like you very much right now. 

Why is it that we are able to extend this love to others, but we are unable to grant it to ourselves?

Why is it that we are able to forgive and heal and tenderly stitch up our loving relationships, as many times as necessary, but we are so quick to abandon ourselves?

Brave love is valiant, elastic, and permissive.

It is about you, juggling your love for yourself and your disappointment – simultaneously.  It is about showing yourself the same kind of unconditional love that you generously share in your closest relationships. 

It is about healing the deep rift in your relationship with yourself.

You are a human being.

You are going to make mistakes. You are probably going to make MANY mistakes. You cannot be expected to be perfect. You are courageous, learning as you go. You are experimental, taking risks and seeing what might be possible. You are not a robot.

And yet, so many of us abandon ourselves in our moments of imperfection.

It is easy to love ourselves when we tumble out of bed looking impossibly gorgeous to a few dozen words of praise from the universe. It is easy to love ourselves when things are going well. 

But what happens when the car breaks down? Or the electricity gets shut off because you couldn’t pay the bill? Or your partner dumps you for someone half your age? Or you get fired?

Or, you simply feel bad inside – grumpy, sad, frustrated, and disappointed with the way your life is going.

You deserve your own love – always.

Real, lasting  acceptance, action, and change has to be firmly rooted in your love for yourself. Anything and everything that you want for your life depends first on repairing the rift in your primary relationship – the one that you have with yourself.

Forward movement must be based in unconditional love and respect for ourselves, but in order to operate from that deep and beautiful place, we have to know that we have our own backs. We have to know that we won’t abandon ourselves, even when things don’t go the way that we would like them to.

We have to know that we are deserving of that kind of unconditional love.

I want you to know that you are deserving of that kind of love.

If you aren’t sure or you feel dubious or you simply need reminding, Brave Love has your name all over it. We start February 3rd. Give the gift of unconditional, brave love to yourself for Valentines Day this year – I promise you, you will be better for it.