self-love Archives - Adulting: Second- Half

Who I Am

@michaelwithana (Twitter)

There’s a conversation that I had with a friend last week that has been swimming around in my head, wondering if there was a blog post to come from it. Then I saw this tweet this morning and I saw it as a sign to “just start writing.”

My friend has a daughter in her early twenties who is going through one of those existential crises, where she is utterly unsure about every decision she has made in her life thus far. The daughter opined to her mother that she felt that every decision she has made thus far, in her young adult life, was because she was following the opinions and directions of others. Her strong will to please others had superseded the will to get to know herself, and to follow her own direction in life. And she felt unhappy and unsure with her current station in life, yet she had no idea what direction she wanted to take next. After my friend told me about this discussion she had with her daughter, she and I almost immediately said at the same time, “What woman hasn’t experienced these feelings at least once in her life? ”

Probably most young people, no matter what their pronouns (my kids would be so proud of me for putting it this way. . . I’m growing . . . .I’m learning) experience this “What am I doing? What is my purpose?” crisis as they grow up, and move out of their childhoods. I remember a time when my eldest son, who was a sophomore in college at the time, called me, in pure angst, declaring, “I just don’t want to be “a suit”, Mom. I can’t end up being “a suit”!” I believe that I said something like, “Well, knowing strongly what you don’t want, can help you to pivot that, to what you do want. If you don’t want to be “a suit”, you do know that you want a career in which you don’t have to don a suit.” On an aside, he’s now a successful tech guy. I think that he only has worn his one and only suit at the very occasional wedding, interview and funeral.

Lately, it has struck me, as we have been getting more Christmas cards with address changes than we have gotten in a long time, that my husband and I are entering into one of these transitional times in life, when this type of existential crisis starts rearing its ugly head again. Kids are growing up, and leaving the nest. Friends are retiring or changing career paths, while downsizing or changing their lifestyles completely. The sometimes mindless, yet purposeful formula that we have been following (and the formula that most of our contemporaries have been following) is coming to a close, as it enters into a wide open, blank-spaced new chapter in our lives. And that’s daunting. Exciting, but daunting. This stage in life starts churning up an angsty, but undirected sense of urgency. As previous ironclad objectives and goals come to a close, the time has come for imaginative pondering and wandering into wide open possibilities.

Before writing this blog post, I read a few articles about getting to know yourself, but I liked this question set, written by Farnoosh Brock, the best. It really helps get the contemplative juices flowing (taken verbatim from this article: https://www.prolificliving.com/get-to-know-yourself/)

What activity in your life lights you up with joy?
What is something you always love doing, even when you are tired or rushed? Why?
If a relationship or job makes you unhappy, do you choose to stay or leave?
What do you fear about leaving a bad job or a bad relationship?
What do you believe is possible for you?
What have you done in your life that you are most proud of?
What is the thing that you are second most proud of?
What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
How does your being here in the universe change humanity for the better?
If you could have one single wish granted, what would it be?
How comfortable are you with your own mortality?
What is your highest core value?
To your best knowledge, how do other people perceive you?
How would you like others to perceive you?
How confident are you in your abilities to make decisions for yourself?
What is your biggest self-limiting belief?
Who is the most important person in your life?
Who is your greatest role model?
Who is a person that you don’t like yet you spend time with?
What is something that is true for you no matter what?
What is your moral compass in making difficult decisions?
What is one failure that you have turned into your greatest lesson?
What role does gratitude play in your life?
How do you feel about your parents?
How is your relationship with money?
How do you feel about growing old someday?
What role has formal education played in your life and how do you feel about it?
Do you believe your destiny is pre-determined or in your hands to shape however you wish?
What do you believe is the meaning of your life?

No matter what your age, or stage in life, I think that these questions are interesting and vital and an excellent pathway to better understand yourself and what is meaningful and vital to you. Pick just one question and play with it today. Maybe journal about it. Be curious about yourself. You might be surprised by the answers that float to the surface. You might even learn something new and interesting about yourself. You might even fall just a little bit in love with yourself. Knowing yourself intimately makes the loving yourself thing, a whole lot easier.

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Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Template for Being

My friend sent this to our group chat this morning. I am going to make this my “template for being”, for the rest of 2020. This is the perfect year to become your own best friend. One time when I was muddling around with a tough decision, one of my dear friends said to me, “What advice would you give to me, in this situation?” That was a huge perspective changer. I am much softer, kinder, more compassionate, forgiving and understanding with my friends and my family, than I tend to be with myself. We work hard to be “good” in relationships, but we often leave the most important relationship out of that equation. Our most important relationship is with ourselves. No one will be with us longer, on this Earth. And if that statement still feels/sounds/seems too “selfish” understand that it follows that we cannot love others any better than we love ourselves. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves. I am guessing that Jesus wanted us to love our neighbors a whole lot better, than the conditional, demeaning, cold, harsh way that we sometimes treat ourselves. It also follows that if we don’t learn to love ourselves, we are starving for love, so we try to suck it dry from other people/things/experiences outside of ourselves. We soon find that our neediness, or that “giving to get”, doesn’t work in the long term, and we start resenting the very people and objects we claim to love, and thus, a vicious cycle continues.

Be your own best friend for the rest of this year. Make a Valentines pact to fall in love with yourself. When you listen to your inner critic, ask yourself, “Would I speak to my best friend this way?” When you make a health/life/relationship choice, ask yourself, “Would I advise my best friend make this choice?” When you give the gift of time, money or service, ask yourself, “Is my motivation to give here, clearly altruistic, or am I secretly trying to manipulate getting one of my needs met from outside sources (and if so, can I find a way to meet these needs myself)? Am I keeping expectations chained to this “gift”?” When you let other people dictate how your life should go/be/look like, ask yourself, “Would I want my best friend to give his or her power away? Would I want my best friend to be a victim?” People don’t realize that if we all experienced our own lives, acting as our own best friends, the world would be a happier, healthier, more loving, giving place than it has ever been before. The following verse from the Bible is read to us at practically every wedding that we ever attend. Try to look at it in the context of loving yourself. It takes on a whole, interesting new meaning and depth, doesn’t it?

No fortune for today, pure Love is our greatest fortune.

Thank Yourself

Have you thanked yourself lately? Have you given yourself some appreciation? Have you told yourself how grateful you are for the life that you have created? I think that you deserve some recognition for all that you do for yourself, don’t you? I’m sure that you are good at feeding yourself criticism and admonishment to do more and to be more, but have you balanced that out with any loving kindness and valuing of yourself?

Have you thanked yourself for everything that you have tried in life, even when it was hard? Have you really thanked yourself for all of the experiences you have tried – the new places you have gone to, the new foods that you have attempted to cook and to savor, the new abilities that you have taken the time to learn and to master, the new jobs and career paths that you at first had so little expertise in, the new relationships that you have nurtured, willing to risk your fragile heart? All of those things take so much bravery and courage. You deserve thanks for all of those experiences.

Have you been grateful to yourself, for all of the fun that you have given to yourself – interesting books and movies and shows and music and art that you have gotten lost in, amazing trips and vacations to places so different from what you call home, the willingness to laugh out loud at all of the absurdities that come with life? It’s great that you let yourself relax and to laugh and to smile and to take pause.

Have you said thank you to your body lately – the vehicle that allows you to experience all of the sensations that life has to offer? Have you thanked it for taking you to where you want to go, to helping you bring forth more life into this world, for continuing to run on the low fumes of lack of sleep and good nutrition, that sometimes come from the busy life that you lead? Have you thanked it for being so reliable and rarely breaking down? Or do you just get angry at your body for not being photo-shop beautiful or for finally breaking down and getting sick, when it has been pushed too far?

Have you been grateful to yourself for the comforting nest that you have created for yourself and for your family? Have you really said thank you to you, for giving yourself that comfortable couch, that warm bed, those cozy pillows, that eye-catching statue that is so aesthetically pleasing to you, and those large windows that allow the beautiful nature to feel like it is part of your inside home? Have you really thanked yourself for creating a soothing place to call home?

Have you thanked your sensitive heart for risking hurt with every new relationship that you have entered into? Have you thanked yourself for nourishing your relationships to the point that you really understand the depth and the breadth of your deepest love, even with the vulnerability that comes with that gift from your heart? Have you thanked yourself for co-creating every wonderful, wonderful relationship in your life – the good ones that you have with your partner, your family, your friends, your pets, your co-workers, your God? Those relationships that you work so hard to nurture are perhaps the most beautiful gift that you have given to yourself. Have you really said thank you to yourself for co-creating and nourishing them?

Have you thanked yourself for removing yourself from harm – harm and hurt from toxic relationships – toxic people, toxic places, and toxic things that were sucking the very life, right out of you? You took those very courageous, heart wrenching steps for yourself, to disentangle yourself from pain, when nobody else would or could do it for you. Wow, how amazing and loving and strong and protective of you! Have you really said thank you to yourself for all of this?

You are amazing to yourself. You do so much for yourself, even in the sometimes constant barrage of criticism and total lack of appreciation. There is no one who has done more for you in your life, than you. There is no one who is more reliable, willing and able to be with you, from your very beginning until your dying day. There is no one else in this world who is wholeheartedly with you, in your every triumph, and in your every stumble, than your very self. Have you thanked yourself lately? If there were any other person in your life, who has done this much for you, and stuck with you throughout your lifetime, through all of the good times and all of the bad, you would probably be on your knees and in tears of gratitude, for everything that this person has done and has been for you. How could you not love yourself? At the very least, have you thanked yourself?

Front Row Seats

On an aside, before I get to what’s really on my mind today, last night, I went to bed belly laughing with my husband. My second eldest son used a “Face App” to age himself and his siblings to an age, older than even his parents, and he sent the pictures to the family chat. It is kind of disturbing to see pictures of your kids at ages, even older than yourselves. I got a glimpse of who will be coming to visit me in the nursing home. Their responses were even more hilarious. “Scary.” “Terrifying.” “Brutal.” I said to my husband, “I wonder back when we were their ages (currently spanning ages 15-23), if we had that app and saw pictures of what we looked like today, would we find the startling pictures to be scary, terrifying and brutal?” Thankfully, aging is a slower process than an instant application, so our response to aging is not quite as harsh as that, except on really bad days.

Another concept that I kept pondering a lot yesterday was self-care/self-love. Yesterday, was kind of a “bad” day in some ways, but like all bad days, it had a silver lining. The people whom I love most – my husband, my kids, some extended family and some really good friends and even my dogs, bolstered me, nurtured me, cared for me, validated me and made me feel quite loved and understood. I’m lucky to have such good, solid people in my life. I hope that I am as good at nurturing them in return, for all that they do for me. I think we all, especially we women, spend a lot of time nurturing and caring for others. Sometimes we even get a lot of our own “self-worth” from what we do for others. But the question that kept popping into my head yesterday, is the wondering to myself, if I would put my own self into the category of the best carers/nurturers, in my own life.

At this stage of the game, in this second half of our adult lives, most of us have experienced the painful process of having to extricate toxic people from our lives. Even if we still love the damaging person(s), we realize that for our own sanity, the toxicity and the drama and the upsets that these people’s actions create, no longer deserve a place, in the front row of our lives. Even if we don’t do the extrication process in order to protect ourselves, we often finally do it, for our families’ best interests and health and sanity. So, the question kept popping up in my mind, what category would I put myself into, in my own life? Would I be in the loving/caring/nurturing category or would I often be in the toxic person category? When I talk to myself, am I kind, considerate, understanding and patient with myself, or am I judging, condescending and harsh? When I care for myself, do I encourage good nutrition, extra sleep and healthy exercise or do I look for the “quick fix” from unhealthy options? When I give myself advice do I do it in a positive light or is it spiraled in negativity? Do I give myself the sound advice that I would give to the people I love the most, and want for them, only the best? In short, do I treat myself how the best nurturers in my life treat me, or am I in the toxic person category? Do I treat myself as a loved, valued and respected member of the group of people who I care for the most? Do I nurture myself in the ways that I hope to nurture my spouse, my children, my family, my pets and my best friends? I came to the conclusion yesterday, that self-care is not just an occasional splurge on a massage or allowing myself to spend some hours just reading a good book. Self-care is making sure that I am in the circle of people who I trust the most, the people who I know have my best interests at heart – the people who are rooting for me. Self-care is making sure that I, myself, am not in that circle of people who have proven to be too negative and hurtful to be a big part of my life any longer. Like it is often said, we can’t do our best job loving and caring for others, if we don’t do it for ourselves first. For some reason that statement became more clear to me yesterday. Do you treat yourself like a person who deserves a front row seat in your life? I think that it is a good thing to ponder, from time to time.

The Reality of Neverland

“If you don’t heal what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.” – Think Smarter, Twitter

“We repeat what we don’t repair.” – Christine Langley-Obaugh

I just watched the HBO documentary featuring two of Michael Jackson’s sexual abuse accusers called Leaving Neverland. Tough stuff. My family has experienced contact with pedophiles in the past. Thankfully, our children were not harmed, but others, who my children knew, were not so fortunate. Please look up my blog post called Mama, Trust Your Gut for more detail.

I know a lot of people stand by Michael Jackson’s innocence. He is not alive to defend himself. Still, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose that these now grown men are telling the truth in the documentary and Michael is guilty of sexually abusing young boys. Both men claim to have come to crisis points in their adult lives, where they just couldn’t hide the truth from themselves or the people who they loved, any longer. They had to open up their wounds and clean the feeling of a dirty secret, out of those wounds. They both felt that this was the only way that the wounds could eventually scab over and heal to the point of being scars of the past. Interestingly, both men seemed to come to their crisis points right around the time that they started families and they had their own children. They couldn’t fathom allowing anyone to do the things that they claim that Michael did to them, to their own precious children. Their perspective of wanting to protect their own children, showed them that what happened to them as children, was so wrong and so undeserved.

Self-care can be a difficult road to navigate sometimes. Sometimes we have such fear of being or being perceived as being “selfish” that we forget how important self-love and self-care is for not only ourselves, but for the people we love and share our lives with. We are not giving others the best of ourselves, if we are not self-nurturing and working on healing, and growing from the hurt parts of ourselves.

As a parent, I have four young people in this world who I love beyond life itself. I want nothing but the best of everything that life has to offer for my children. I imagine that most parents feel the same way. I have learned to use that perspective for myself (and for my inner child). As I have grown in parenting, I have learned that children watch a whole lot more of what you model, than what you say. Children are much more intuitive and astute than most of us give them credit for being. If we want them to learn to take care of and nurture and heal and protect themselves, than we must do the same for ourselves. We, and the people we love, deserve nothing less than pure, real, kind, love.

“Memories demand attention, and these memories will have teeth.”
― C. Kennedy, Slaying Isidore’s Dragons

“There is no one way to recover and heal from any trauma. Each survivor chooses their own path or stumbles across it.”
― Laurie Matthew, Behind Enemy Lines

Top Shelf

At this time of year, I am not immune to all of the insanely good clearance markdown sales. It always such a battle in my mind between, “Do I really need this, or is just going to add to the crazy clutter of my already overstuffed closet?” versus “Holy cow, when am I ever again going to get to purchase cashmere/leather/designer/multi-stoned at these unbelievably remarkable, marked-down prices?” (maybe after next Christmas, but that is beside the point. Ha!) It reminds me of when Jim Gaffigan, the comedian, talks about fast food deals: “I’m not going to lose money by not taking this deal.” Makes sense to me. 😉

At this time of year, it’s also a good idea to check our own price tags. I wrote this quote down a while ago. It’s a good one:

“If you aren’t being treated with love and respect, check your own price tag. Maybe you’ve marked yourself down. It’s you who tells people what you’re worth. Get off of the clearance rack and get behind the glass where they keep the valuables.” – Relationship Rules

This year, readers, let’s all be Louis Vuitton. Let’s treat ourselves with respect and reverence so that others can follow suit. Let’s not discount our worth. After all, we are “one-of-a-kinds”. The mold has already been broken. There is nothing more rare or valuable than a “one-of-a-kind.” When we understand this about ourselves, we inherently understand that about all of the other “one-of-a-kinds” walking around this top shelf of “Le Earth” with us. A year of elevated love and respect sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? There is no sale on our souls because “priceless” never goes on sale.

Why Shouldn’t You Love Yourself?

I love the voice of the singer Norah Jones. I played her Come Away With Me album so much, I fear that I may have turned the rest of my family off to her. But I think Norah Jones has one of the most gorgeous, soothing, silvery singing voices I have ever heard. The other day I was listening to her sing the remake of the Hank Williams song, “How Many Times Have You Broken My Heart?” It is a great remake and an easy song to sing along to, but then I got to thinking about the lyrics. We are supposed to feel sorry for the singer who has repeatedly been hurt by a straying lover. And you can’t help but feel sorry for the singer, to a point . . . . . . Then, after a while, if you were a good, true, honest friend to the singer, you would probably have to say, “Stop being a victim. Stop being complicit in your own pain. Take back your power. Love yourself.”

That may sound harsh, but it is true. When we stay in victim mode, we give away our power. When we stay with repeatedly abusive people and unchanging abusive situations, we start to fall into the realm of self-abuse. All abuse is wrong. Self-abuse is abuse. Accepting abuse is self-abuse. Again, all abuse is wrong.

We’ve been conditioned to love others, take care of others and to be “selfless.” But the truth is, we can’t give our best love to others without truly loving ourselves first. Hurting people hurt people.

“If the nasty voices in conditioned mind are allowed to be cruel to us, it will follow as the night, the day, that we will be cruel to others. That’s just the way it is. We can’t be with anyone else in ways that we are not with ourselves.” – Cheri Huber

I was discussing the above quote with friends and a few of them didn’t agree with it. They felt that they could be loving and kind to others and still be incredibly harsh to themselves. And that may be true to a point, but if you are unfailingly loving to yourself wouldn’t it all but guarantee that you would only know love as a way of being? If your only way of being is the the way of love, then it follows that it wouldn’t be possible to be anything but loving to yourself and to others. Why should loving yourself not be a part of the equation?

“The most important relationship in life is the one you have with yourself. And if you have that, any other relationship is a plus and not a must.” – Diane von Furstenberg

If you learn to love yourself the way that you want to be loved, you are fulfilled. In that sense, when you enter into any relationship you are bringing a fulfilled, whole person into the partnership or friendship or relation. There is not neediness or expectation, just the joy of shared love, commonalities and experiences. In healthy relationships you are enhancing each other’s lives, bringing fullness and excitement and mutual interest to each other’s experiences. But you are not dependent on the other person to create that fullness, excitement, and interest. You are multiplying it together.

Charlie Chaplin said, “As I began to love myself, I freed myself of anything that is not good for my health- food, people, things, situations and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is Love of Oneself.”