Do me a quick favor. Pull up your favorite love song. Or any love song.
It doesn’t matter to me if it’s Frank Sinatra’s “The way you look tonight” or Michael Buble’s “Everything” or “Endless Love” by Diana Ross and Lionel Richie. If Beyonce’s “Crazy in Love” is more your style or if your fave is Jesse McCartney’s “Because you live”- doesn’t matter to me.
Now that you’ve got one, go ahead and listen to it. Even just a snippet of it.
Now imagine you’re singing that love song to your person. Doesn’t matter if you have one right now or if you’re singing to the person of your future. Just imagine singing that song to someone you truly love. Feel the power in that? Not to be too gushy but thinking about Adam and singing certain songs can bring me to tears sometimes.
Now imagine having your person singing that song to you, about you. Feel the love fill you up. Does it make you uncomfortable? It certainly has made me uncomfortable to be serenaded- especially when that person really loves me. The attention, let alone all the love, gets turned on you- and most of us aren’t used to that.
Now play the song one more time. And this time, sing that song about yourself. You are the reason you live and breathe. You make yourself believe in yourself when nobody else can help. You’re hoping you’ll save yourself right now. You mean the world to yourself. You are the swimming pool on an August day. And in this crazy life and through these crazy times, it’s you- you are everything to yourself. And you should never, ever change and keep that breathless charm because you love yourself. Does that feel weird? If you’re feelin ballsy, go sing it to yourself in the mirror.
How strange is it to tell yourself that you love yourself? The first time I did that, it was really uncomfortable. It didn’t feel genuine. But imagine a time when it does feel genuine. Imagine standing in your power, looking yourself in the mirror, and saying “I love you” and meaning it. Society has taught us that loving ourselves is selfish. It’s arrogant. But I’m here to tell you that it’s neither of those things.
Recently, I’ve realized that the relationship that matters most is the relationship you have with yourself. Perpetuated self-hate is detrimental. Just like self-deprecating humor. But we put ourselves down. All. The. Time. At least that has been my experience.
When you think about it, isn't it awful? Most of us are our own greatest critics. We beat ourselves up over the smallest things. We torture ourselves for no reason. It's a wonder any of us get anything done. When we treat ourselves so poorly, we hurt ourselves. We don't take care of ourselves. Whether we notice or not, we are teaching ourselves that we are mediocre. That we're bad. We get into this mindset that we aren't good enough or that what we have to share isn't valuable. But it is! And we are enough! We need to stop this self-destruction in its tracks.
If you’re feeling stuck or having trouble saying “I love you” to yourself, I’d love to chat. I’d love to help you learn how to love and value yourself so you can put yourself out into the world with success. You’ll learn what it means to live in abundance so comparison and competition are things of the past.
I’d love for you to sing that love song one more time to yourself, about yourself. If you keep practicing, let me know what changes. As always, I’d love to cheer you on.
In honor of our 2nd anniversary, I’ll leave you with lyrics from Dave Matthew’s “You and me” as if you were singing them to yourself. You are not tied to the ground… Eyes closed you’re going to spin through the stars Your arms wide as the sky You’re going to ride the blue all the way to the end of the world… You can do anything.
