What’s Love Got to Do With It

It boils down to this: At the end of the day, you’ve got yourself. 

You’ve got the body that you are sitting in at this moment.

You’ve got the heart that stands by, waiting to guide your way.

You are a collection of skin, cells, breath, and energy.

Now, there are two ways to approach yourself.

1. Dragging yourself around. Living in spite of yourself.

2. Digging in. Getting Cozy. Embracing the full expanse of your experience on this planet.

It occurred to me this morning that until this moment in time, I’ve been explaining this whole self-love thing all wrong.

I’ve been thinking about building a relationship with yourself as something that requires significant buy-in, and that it requires an enormous amount of cajoling and laying it on thick to truly get it’s importance across.

As in, you really need to be told why it is worth all the effort, before you might begin the hard work that learning to love yourself surely entails.

Now, it does require buy-in. You do have to expend energy. You have to make the decision to brush your teeth or lace up your sneakers. You might even experience growing pains as you strive to re-author your boundaries and become an active participant in your daily life, after what might be a lifetime of complacency.

You will be required to do the work.

But no one said that work had to be unpleasurable. 

Getting to know (and love) yourself is the most pleasurable thing I have ever done, without exception. It is the reason that I wake up in the morning. It is the catalyst that pushes me to dream bigger and to take steps towards the life that I want. It is coming home to my body that has saved my life. 

I’ve been expending energy thinking about ways to get you to realize that embracing self-love and self-care will monumentally improve your life – ways to get you to climb on board and reap the benefits.

I’ve been underestimating you, a mistake that I assure you I will only make once. 

Because, here’s the thing: The struggles that I’ve faced? The difficulties that I’ve overcome in learning how to love myself? They are my best parts. 

They have been the playground for my spirit – a place where I have been able to experiment, fail spectacularly, pick myself up, and learn how to invite all of my parts to the table, even the parts I had wanted to leave behind forever. 

I am better for my struggle.

I am better for my trial and error.

I am better, because I lovingly reparented myself from the foundation up. I became fluent in my love language. I learned how to embody the love that I was seeking from the world around me. 

The only buy in that I will offer you is this: Your life will be better. You will be better. Your every moment may not be perfectly comfortable, but it will be deeply grounded in self-trust.

The kind of self-trust that no one can take away from you. 

Returning home to yourself is not only possible, it is imperative.

The strength, power, and energy that you bring to your life is anchored to the relationship that you have with yourself.

You are all that you’ve got.

Lucky you, to have someone so phenomenal on your team.

Someone who is resilient, curious, imaginative, powerful, creative, and beautiful.

I am all that I’ve got.

That’s all the buy-in that I need.

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