“Today I’m going to fall in love
Victoria Erickson
with the way I belong to myself.”
Do you remember when you fell in love? Really, really in love? The this-is-the-one kind of love?
Maybe it was with your current (or former) spouse or partner. Maybe it was the moment you saw your newborn. It could even have been that special pet who absolutely stole your heart.
Whatever the object of your tender feelings, wasn’t it stunning? Not in that magical, be-still-my-heart way that tends to wear off as soon as you hear the person belch. (If you really love someone, you think it’s kind of adorable … at first.) We’re talking a knowing that trumps all other knowings when it hits you. It’s big. It’s deep. It’s everything. It was the way Elizabeth Barrett Browning felt when she wrote:
“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach.”
This week, I want us to experience falling in love again. With ourselves.
Do WHAT?
You read that right. We each need to look at the Yes-You who has surfaced this month of our journey and love it. Really love it.
If you did mutter, “Do what?” or thought any version of “That sounds conceited,” you may have fallen prey to the misconception that, unfortunately, many Christians – actually many religious people, period – have. The mistaken belief that we were born into sin and we aren’t worth the dust under the feet of the Divine so we shouldn’t think too highly of ourselves.
Okay, no, this isn’t about being a narcissist. I’m not saying walk around telling everyone how freakin’ wonderful you are. But for Pete’s sake, we were each of us made by a loving God who doesn’t put together pieces of crap and call them people. We are divine creations. Where is the “I’m not worthy” in that?
When we fall in love with another person, we totally get that he isn’t perfect. I tell every young woman who complains about her boyfriend, “Marry a man whose flaws you can live with. He’s going to have them, and you aren’t going to change them.” When a guy asks a woman to spend her life with him, chances are good that he doesn’t see her as flawless.
Love isn’t idolatry. It isn’t blind and deaf and completely without sense. (Unless you’re 16, but that’s a whole other thing.) Love is accepting the whole package and finding it a delicious experience.
What is the point of discovering our authentic selves if we aren’t going to love us that way too?
Prepare To Be Smitten
This week as we continue our journey in our Facebook community, we’re going to explore what it means to do the following:
- Accept ourselves as we are, even as we continue to become more real
- Shed any shreds of self-loathing that might still cling to us
- Love the Yes-You, unconditionally
I predict that we’re going to find ourselves solving everybody else a whole lot better in the process.
So buy yourself flowers. Treat yourself to your fave meal. Look in the mirror and say, “I really love you.” That’s a good place to start.
This week’s question: Where do you stand on the idea of loving yourself? Honestly. Deep down. How hard – or easy – is it to embrace this concept?
Me? I believe it. Until I remember how obnoxious I sounded to myself last night … and then I have to go back and believe it again!
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It wasn’t until just a few years ago that I stopped hating myself. And I’m in my 60’s!
Hating ourselves is a lie from the pit. The enemy WANTS us to not love ourselves because when we don’t love ourselves, we are ineffective at doing any good for anyone.
As a Christian, I have come to the belief that if God sacrificed His only son for ME, then I am worthy of being loved. And that includes myself. I do believe we’re born into sin, but God provided a way out. Still, it doesn’t matter what someone believes about that ~ the loving and not hating ourselves is the same, I think. Like I commented on Nancy’s FB post to Barb Haley: it’s the airplane thing. We have to put on our own oxygen mask before we can help others.
No one is perfect. We’re gonna do right or wrong or downright stupid stuff. But we need to learn from mistakes, get up, brush ourselves off, and keep going. If we’re SO focused on EITHER hating or loving ourselves, what good to others and the world are we? Ya know?
It’s all about balance.