January 29, 2022

Shameless Self-Love

SHAMELESS SELF-LOVE

If women really want to experience the love and intimacy we crave, it begins with Shameless Self Love. I believe we create and manifest all aspects of our lives.  We magnetize our own reality to us and if we are not experiencing the love and intimacy we so desperately crave, let’s look at why!!!

What is getting in the way of you experiencing the depths of love you desire?

There is a part of us and our little girl that has a need to feel worthy and deserving of love and attention.  If we experienced any trauma or event as a little girl that skewed our vision of love, the imprint of that memory lives inside of our bodies (whether we consciously know it or not).   If we believe we should be punished or are not deserving of love, then we will not attract the type of love our heart truly desires. We will push away love, feeling we are not worthy of it or we will look to a man to rescue and save us from ourselves.  This is one of the many reasons so many marriages end up in divorce.

As a little girl, whenever I was afraid, I ran to my grandfather for love and attention.  That love and affection turned into inappropriate signs of love and skewed my view on love from boys and men.  I remember feeling like I always needed a boy in my life.  I didn’t know how to fill myself with love.  I thought I needed to find a man that would rescue me like grandpa did, but when I realized that type of love and affection was not appropriate, I felt ashamed and unworthy of the love I desired.  I had misunderstandings of what love really was ever since I was a little girl.  I can remember from a very young age, not feeling comfortable saying I LOVE YOU to my parents.  They used to say it all the time, but the words would never come out.   I always wondered why I didn’t feel comfortable saying I LOVE YOU, when they were such loving people.

– Did I feel they were NOT worthy and deserving of my LOVE?
– Did I feel betrayed by them?
– Did I feel they didn’t protect me?
– Did I feel that they hurt me?
– Did I feel abandoned by them?

These were some questions for ME to dive deeper into regarding my views of love.  We all have different perspective of what we were taught about love.  If you have struggled with putting yourself first and find it hard to give love to yourself, I encourage you to journal on some of the questions below:

  • What did your parents tell you about love and relationships?
  • How did your parents show love to each other?
  • Did your parents live a life serving others first? Or did they teach you the value of self-love?
  • Did you ever feel abandoned by either parent?
  • Did you feel your parents hurt you or didn’t protect you?

If we do not dive deeper into what we were taught about love as a little girl, it will impact NOT just our partnership, but it will also show up in other places in our lives, including our business.  LOVE is about self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, self- image and self-worth.  If we do not believe that we are worthy and deserving of love, money, happiness etc… then this imprint will expose itself in how you show up in ALL aspects of your life.  Truly loving yourself is valuing who you are!

If you want to experience blissful, epic love, you have to create it for yourself.  You can do this by embodying and embracing the highest consciousness of love first.  In this place, you will not only feel greater love, you will attract more of it to you.

Love starts within.  It begins with loving yourself so deeply that you feel it in your bones.  You begin to radiate a love so deep that that your radiance shines forth and you begin to attract more and more love to you.  You no longer need to look for love, you become love.  When you show up and radiate love, you open yourself up to the love you deserve.

So how exactly do you learn to love yourself first?  You allow your little girl to be free and awaken the Shameless Self-Love within you!

 

January 29, 2022

What is Unconditional Love?

What is Unconditional Love Anyway?

How often to you offer love with “strings attached”, without knowing it? Or have an expectation of that if someone loves you they will do something for you?

The day before Christmas, my boys were all together under the same roof for the first time in months.  All I wanted for Christmas, was my boys to take a nice family photo.  I believed I was not expecting too much.  But all hell broke lose when one of my son’s REFUSED to take a family photo.  Can anyone else relate?

I know with little kids, it’s sometimes hard to take a photo, but you would think with adult children it would be different. My one son doesn’t like taking photos, but I figured that since it was the only thing I asked for, that he would do it.  He reluctantly put on our new matching PJ’s  and stood behind us as we took the photo.  He turned the Christmas tree off during the photo and hid so we couldn’t see his face.  When we realized he wasn’t in the photo, we asked him to take it again.  We all said things like… Please put your jammies back on. Why can’t you just take a photo? I don’t understand what the big deal is with taking a picture etc…) At this point, he was done.

I tried to talk with him, but by this point, his emotional well being had hit the charts.  There would be no talking. I have learned over time that when he gets triggered, he needs his space.  Talking to him, asking him questions and trying to get him to engage are inconceivable to him.  Anyone’s consistent probing doesn’t do any good.

I initially felt horrible. All I wanted was a picture and some family time and it turned into a dramatic affair. I did some self-reflecting on the whole event and it made me think about expectations and unconditional love.

Did I really think that him refusing to take the photo meant that he didn’t love me? Did I really think that he intentionally wanted to hurt me?  Was I setting the expectation that if he loves me, he will take the photo, and if he doesn’t love me then he won’t?  So many wild ideas can cross our minds, and it made me really wonder what the lesson was for me.

Each person is unique, and this son handles things very differently that I would, but it doesn’t mean I love him any less. The greatest gift I could have given him is unconditional love.  Even if you don’t take a photo, I still love you.  He doesn’t understand why he feels the way he does, he just knows he’s different.  Sometimes he doesn’t like being different, but he is.

The next morning, I went downstairs and he wouldn’t speak to me.  He was hiding under the covers.  He didn’t want a lecture.  I said good morning, I love you and left.  Later that morning, he tapped me on the shoulder when walking by and I knew today would be a better day.

I am sure he felt bad for how things ended.  He has told me before, sometimes he can’t control how his body responds and he just needs space. He didn’t want us to yell at him and blame him for what happened.  The truth is, he typically asks for 24-hour notice for watching movies, pictures, family time, etc…   His body needs to prepare for the connection with people.   He was not ready for this type of connection and was pushed to the limit.  It seems odd for the rest of us, but it is a great reminder to learn how to love and accept people for who they are.  This son has made an extreme influence in my life on managing expectations and meeting people where they are and not expecting them to be just like me.

You can’t force someone to be how you want them to be.  You need to understand them and invite them on the journey with you.   If they follow you great, if they don’t that is ok too. It is THEIR journey.

The deeper lesson for me is that while I have expectations of what I desire in life, I am not going to let my love of myself be determined on another person’s actions or lack of action. Or think things like….

If my son doesn’t take a picture, I am not loved.
If my son doesn’t buy me a gift, I am not loved.
If my son doesn’t believe in my spiritual or life theories, I am not loved.

My LOVE, VALUE and WORTH, are not defined by anyone else.  I am loved, cherished, honored, deserving and worthy, because I choose to love myself.  I CHOOSE LOVE.  I choose to BE LOVE.  I choose to act in a loving way, even when I know the person is triggered.  Fighting back is ego’s controlling response of needing to be in power and only creates drama.

In the moment after the photos, I wasn’t choosing LOVE.  I was triggered.  It was a power struggle. I wanted something and wasn’t getting it.  I came across demanding love, which never works.

Did we both make mistakes in the process?  YES
Could we have said or done things differently? YES
Did I have unrealistic expectations of what I wanted? NO
Did he have unrealistic expectations of how he would have liked the situation handled? NO

Communication on expectations and limits or boundaries are key.  Only through communicating your needs and wants can we teach people how to treat us.  Demanding what you want, when you want it, because you want it, never works.

Loving yourself unconditionally and knowing you are not broken, you do not need to be fixed, you are loved, deserving and worthy, allows you to shine your love and light into the world.  You do not need someone else’s validation (especially your children) to know that you are loved.

YOU ARE LOVE.

June 2, 2020

Men and women ARE different! Understanding LOVE and RESPECT

In continuing with our theme of celebrating masculinity, I wanted to highlight something important that I think as women we tend to forget. We laugh and joke around about books like “Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus” or “Men are like Waffles and Women are like Spaghetti” and countless others. The truth is men and women ARE different. We can’t expect the men in our lives to behave and act like the women in our lives. They have had different programming, different experiences, and relate to their relationships in their own unique ways. It is unrealistic and gets us into trouble to expect them to be “like” us in these relationships.

When we learn to appreciate and understand masculinity and what makes a man tick, it brings a whole different dynamic to the relationship. In relationships, men and women need and want different things. They each have different needs and priorities. While men may put sex as higher importance on their relationship priority list than women may, I am NOT talking about sex being “the thing” of what makes a man tick. I am talking about Honor and Respect. If you want deeper intimacy and connection with your partner, the key is learning how to Respect him.

There is a wonderful book written by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs entitled, “Love and Respect.” According to the theories of Eggerichs, the love that she most desires and the respect he desperately needs causes pitfalls in relationships. The challenge in many relationships today is that we live in a vicious crazy cycle. Men want respect and women want love and neither party can effectively provide. However, a man can’t love a woman who doesn’t respect him. This is intuitive as you can imagine love can’t happen in ANY relationship where respect is not a foundation. And a woman can’t respect a man if she doesn’t feel loved and seen. If you didn’t have parents that modeled both love and respect in your household, it can be hard visualize this balance of needs. So what does respect look like to a man?
In the book, Dr. Eggerichs breaks out the needs of men and women into two different easy to remember categories. How to spell respect to your man, CHAIRS. How to spell love to your wife: COUPLE.

How to Spell Respect to your Husband:
Conquest: Appreciate his desire to work and achieve
Hierarchy: Appreciate his desire to protect and provide
Authority: Appreciate his desire to serve and lead
Insight: Appreciate his desire to analyze and counsel
Relationship: Appreciate his desire for Shoulder- to Shoulder Friendship
Sexuality: Appreciate his desire for Sexual Intimacy

How to Spell Love to your Wife:
Closeness: She wants you to be close
Openness: She wants you to open up to her
Understanding: Don’t try to fix her, just listen
Peacemaking: She wants you to say “I’m Sorry”
Loyalty: She wants to know your committed
Esteem: She wants you to honor and cherish her

As women, we know what it feels like to be LOVED. We crave this in our relationships and if we don’t feel loved from our partners, we can feel empty. When experience this empty feeling, and it can be hard to show respect our men. Once we are aware of the different needs, it makes it easier to take different actions in your relationship. If you really want to experience deeper levels of intimacy with your partner, it is critical that you understand your man’s basic needs. Rather than criticizing him for actions you can’t relate to, learn to appreciate and respect him for the man he is.