Memo for Monday: You are lovable. No matter what. Every little bit of you. Come rain, come shine. Come good and bad. At your finest, and at your worst. When things work out, and when they go wrong. Your lovability doesn’t get less or more. It just is a given. Because you are you, and you are here.
Somewhere along the lines, we tend to get pretty backasswards-y about our lovability. We start to put conditions on it. I am lovable if I act kind and loving. I am lovable if people are happy with me. I am lovable if I have a great job or earn lots of money or have a partner. I am lovable if I look good. I am lovable if I do everything right, etc. The truth though is that we are lovable even if we don’t meet up to our conditions or standards. Our lovability isn’t conditional at all, that is just a story that we have been taught, and learned so well, that most of the time we don’t even realize that we are playing it out, and causing ourselves and others pain in the process.
I would venture to say that a huge amount of our dysfunctional ways of acting come from an underlying feeling of not being lovable. It can cause us to judge others, contribute to addictions, cause us to get on an endless quest to be more and have more, cause us to act in unloving ways to ourselves and others. To feel unlovable is to carry around a separateness and an emptiness because we have forgotten the truth about ourselves. We are completely and 100% lovable, just because. And as much as external things, such as the love of others, can reflect to us this truth, to base our lovability on anything other than our own knowledge of it deep inside our being, is shaky business.
One of the quickest and most effective ways to own your lovability more and more, is to accept and give love to the darkest parts of yourself. These are those things that you feel shame around, find totally unacceptable, and want to hide from others or yourself. For years I carried around a huge amount of shame that I felt needy of love and feeling special, and played that out by trying to show the world how independent and “together” I was. But inside I didn’t feel this at all, and would tend to hang on too tight to people and for too long. As I began to start to accept and give love to that needy part of myself that I thought was very unlovable and wanted to hide from the world, I started to calm down inside. The shame started to lift. I started to share this part of myself with some safe people in my life. I started to feel how I was lovable even when I was in this space. And this part of me began to heal.
We all have our struggles. Our wounds. Our dark spots. We all have times when we have acted in ways that we regret. Sometimes we have screwed up big time and hurt others. Being able to take these parts of us, of our humanness, and offer acceptance and love and forgiveness if necessary, to ourselves, helps us take huge leaps on the journey to self love. And not surprisingly, from feeling how lovable we are, we grow as people and make positive changes in the areas we want to and we show up and love others better. It is a beautiful and peaceful space to live in and from.
So today, take a moment to think of the conditions you put on your lovability. Question that a bit. Think of how the real truth might be that you are lovable as is, right now, every part of you. The good the bad and the ugly. You are lovable when you do something loving and when you are being critical. You are lovable when you get it right, and when you make mistakes. You are lovable when others are pleased with you and when they are pissed. You are lovable when you have money in savings and when you are in debt. You are lovable when you are fit and when you weigh more than you want. You are lovable when others stay and when others go. You are lovable when you have your shit together and when your shit has you in it’s grasp. Your lovability is a constant. It is a given. Come to know it. To feel it in your bones and in the depths of your heart. You are lovable. You are love.
XOXO
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