self love
“I am mine.
Before I am ever anyone else’s.”
It’s Valentine’s Day and I woke up so happy for all the love in the air. The air is buzzing and I can feel it because I’m a match for it, which wasn’t always my reality. For years Valentine’s Day felt like expectation. For myself and the men I was dating. It felt like judgement, around capitalism and “all the ways holidays are used for profit”. It felt like comparison, especially when it came to my relationships and how we were and were not comparing to others. Or worse, comparing myself to those in relationships if I didn’t have someone beside me.
But this year?
This year is different.
I feel love and nothing but it.
It’s a safe feeling.
It’s genuine.
And from within.
Not manufactured. Not outsourced. It’s not something someone gave me wrapped in a box or sitting in a vase. (Though I love gifts and flowers.)
It’s something I feel.
It’s a way of living; one that extends far greater than February 14th.
And this morning as I opened my eyes I paused in awe of my journey.
In absolute awe of my learnings.
And the people who left me so I could learn them.
Because for years I was a liability. And I don’t say that in a way that’s disrespectful to me. I say that with real, raw honesty. I feel deeply. I’m an intuitive being. I’m an open channel to people’s deepest wounds. The key holder to the exact words I need to say to heal them or leave them bleeding.
To be so receptive is my skill-set.
It’s what helps me move people from where they are to where they want to be, but when left unchecked, my abilities can leave burn marks in those I’m meant to be loving.
Which is something I couldn’t see through my wounding.
When I wasn’t happy, I couldn’t see how just being was harming those around me.
I could only see what I was lacking.
I was unable to take responsibility.
Blame was the game I played.
I was SO good at projecting. At believing others were the reason I was struggling. At convincing myself that the world was out to get me and then later on in my journey, pouring myself dry in an attempt to blur the eyes of those watching and wash away just how much I really didn’t like who I was inside. I wore the victim mentality like jewellery.
With a grace that made others think they were wrong, at fault or in the worst of times, crazy.
So I’ve been playing a different game.
One that puts me at the center of everything.
I’ve taken accountability for my reality and learned that no one is responsible for how my life is or is not going. No person, organization or community.
I’ve been outing myself to myself and facing the deepest parts of me.
And from this place can say that the most loving thing I’ve ever done for those I love most was to learn to love myself, honestly. Not with bubble baths and tea, but with painstaking honesty about who I was and the parts of me that weren’t so loving.
And that’s when I started to feel the love I was promoting.
That’s when I started to understand what it meant to be a friend, partner, humanitarian. To co-exist and to really, truly love another being.
To love we have to be love.
And we can’t be love if we have pain hiding.
So this Valentine’s Day I pray that in amongst the all the sweet words and sentimental things, you too get the opportunity to break open to the process of going within and healing. So you too can wake up one day in witness of the ripple effect of that bravery.
On your life and the lives you’re here to love deeply.
Sending love today and always.
x
Robin