L.O.V.E. Who Do I Love? Me! Me!

Sounds pretty self-centered right? I love me?

In my last post I talked about the 5th secret which is that life is all about love but what I didn’t tell you is that love actually needs to start with loving yourself. Let’s be clear about something though. I’m not suggesting that you become some kind of ego maniac who thinks they are better than everyone else. If you’ve been reading along with me you know that if you feel that way it’s actually your ego at work which is not the real you. No, what I’m talking about is deeper and more real than that.

Love is one of the most incredible things we have in our existence. It is pure, warm, comforting, complete and filled with joy. You know this about love when you experience it from others or when you see it’s existence in the world or when you look at a puppy. You can’t help but feel all fuzzy and warm inside when you experience love. So why wouldn’t you want to love yourself?

Do a little exercise with me.

I want you to remember a moment when you experienced love. Feel how good it felt. Feel the warmth spreading through you. Feel the smile on your face. Feel the glow and joy of that love. Feel how warm and fuzzy it feels and how happy you feel.

Close your eyes and remember love. I’ll wait.

Felt good right? This next part might not be so fun.

Now I want you to remember a time where you did not feel loved. It can be anything at all big or small but I really want you to feel it. Remember the sinking feeling in  your stomach. Remember how icky you felt inside. Remember the feeling of rejection.

Go ahead. It’s not going to be fun but close your eyes and remember it.

Blech.

Hopefully you noticed that in just this simple short exercise that love feels good and the lack of love feels bad and that our bodies actually only need a memory to trigger those feelings. So imagine what you’re doing to yourself when you don’t love yourself. Imagine the damage you’re doing to yourself when you tell yourself that you’re not good enough, smart enough, popular enough, good looking enough, thin enough. That you don’t have enough and aren’t enough. I know you’re smart enough to realize that if you fill yourself with all this negative stuff inside you’re a) not going to be able to truly love others and b) are not going to be able to experience the love of others. Plus when you love yourself it allows you to treat others with love which allows all that love to multiply and come back to you and who doesn’t want more love!?

Let’s put it this way because I know you get this. You know that feeling you get when you look at a picture of a puppy all warm, snuggly, soft and joyful? That’s what love feels like and that’s what you should be filling yourself with.

There’s a lot more to say on this topic but for now, I just want you to start thinking about what love feels like and why you need to start filling yourself with love by loving yourself.