On Love

Being single and writing about self-love on Valentine's Day feels deeply cliche, and as such is something I would generally consider cringe-worthy and actively avoid.

And yet... here I am, writing this newsletter as I sip my morning coffee, full of thoughts about love and what exactly it means to offer it to ourselves.

After a rather sudden and surprising breakup, I've been turning inward these last few months on a journey of intense and deep inner healing of many of my relationship patterns and wounds, and as such, loving myself, choosing myself, and being complete and happy within myself have been topics that have often been on my heart, in my head, and showing up in the reflections of my journal.

What exactly does it mean to love myself?
How does loving myself or not loving myself show up in my life?
Where do I deny myself love, affection, attention, support?
When I'm not loving myself, what does that look like?
What do I want to decide is true for me when it comes to love?

These have been complicated and deeply personal questions, and in many cases the answers are still unfolding for me, but there is one thing that has become crystal clear when it comes to my personal beliefs on love, self or otherwise:

We cannot love that which we are actively attempting to change, fix, repress, deny, or otherwise make other.

I don't believe we can be in love and be in resistance to what currently is present. If you haven't fully accepted someone for who they are, in all their shadow and their gold, and learned to love them with acceptance of all that is present (rather than in spite of the things that you might be in resistance to), then are you really loving them at all?

Not fully, I would argue, and certainly not unconditionally.

For me, this feels true in all relationships -- and it is especially true with my relationship to self.

My journey toward greater self love these last six months has been a learning of how to accept myself. It's been about embracing all the things I used to view as flaws and redefining them, rejecting the notion of flaws and working on recognizing these things as just facets of who I am. It's been noticing all the places I want to change myself, fix myself, deny my truth, override my internal compass, accept less than I desire, or allow myself to be hurt to avoid hurting others, and reminding myself that these are red flags of behavior that is not aligned with loving myself.

It's been a coming home to myself, and an acceptance of everything that is present as being not just okay, but completely, utterly lovable.

All the gold and the shadow. The frustration and the sadness and the pain. The laughter and tears. The things I learned should be rejected or repressed. The parts of me I was told (overtly or otherwise) were bad, wrong, undesirable, or unlovable.

I'm learning to love myself because of all of these things, in utter acceptance in all areas, and learning to make all of it good and right and okay. The old model of love as something we use as a weapon is outdated, and really it's not love at all. Love does not move around the parts of ourselves or others that we are in resistance to, all the things our minds judge, criticize, and rejects.

Love encompasses all. It moves through the hard places. It's not a game of "in spite of" the parts that are hard - it's a game of "because and including" all those parts.

That's the love I aspire to give myself. A love can call me forward and inspire change, but it never demands it. A love to is truly unconditional.