Last week was Valentine’s day.  It’s a holiday my husband and I don’t celebrate in the traditional sense.  Ironically, in spite of all the issues we’ve had over the years, we learned long ago that saving the love/adoration for each other for one day is dangerous.  There are at least 364 other days in the year (this year happens to be a leap year so we get one more 😊) so why do we save it for a single day in February or one in October?  We can express love every day—and we should. Even if we are good at sharing and expressing love throughout the year, over-hyping love on one day is also dangerous and we get skewed ideas of what love is “supposed” to look like.  People have different definitions of love which means they feel and express love differently.  Some people do like things more over the top and overt while others value the little things and quiet expressions of love.  Some like both.  No matter your preference, what we don’t need is a consumer-driven, mass-fed delusion of things to demonstrate our love.  We need to really look at what love is and what it means.    

At its basic level, love is a chemical reaction in the brain.  What it triggers in the body varies for each of us.  The chemicals of love are also wide ranging on their impact, whether it be mental, verbal, or physical expression.  But there is more to love than that.  Love is about connection and bonding.  It’s easy to misinterpret at times and can be overwhelming with its nuances and details.  But what I’ve learned of late is that we truly do need to spend more time working on loving ourselves—as we are, for who we are.  Self-love means truly valuing your own wellbeing and happiness.  It means showing up for and championing ourselves.  It means letting go of judgement, regret, and negative self-talk.  It means embracing our authenticity.  It means offering ourselves the same level of kindness, patience, and forgiveness that we offer so freely to others and maintaining boundaries that support who we are.  There’s the physical and mental component of this and we need to honor both.

The longest relationship we will ever have is with ourself so this means we really need to take the time to get to know who we are and how we operate.  We need to know what makes us tick, how we are motivated, and how we recognize and honor our needs.  This isn’t something we can do one or two days a year—and we certainly don’t need to buy ourselves candy or flowers to learn this.  It’s a critical component to survival—we find our groups that way, our people.  We learn to sustain ourselves and what we need to be fulfilled.  We can’t operate with the expectation that someone will fulfill those needs for us.  The more we take care of ourselves, the less we will need a day of focus on the overt, commercial expressions of love.  This isn’t to say that there isn’t value in spending a day like that, but it shouldn’t be based on consumerist expectations.  Take time to invest in and cultivate a relationship with the self because that is where we manage and navigate those chemicals that tell us we are in love.  Focus that love on ourselves first and we will never need that from another person again.  In short, self-love is the ability to honor and prioritize who we are without shame, guilt, or regret.  Chocolates and flowers only required if we are craving them.   

“Big dreams create the magic that stir men’s souls to greatness,” Bill McCartney.  What a perfect follow up to our discussion on tiptoeing.  It is human nature to dream big—we feel the calling to do something with our lives that we can’t always identify at first.  It’s a thought that creates a feeling, a drive for us.  But there is more to it than merely thinking of big things: we need to bring those dreams/visions to life.  We can’t realize big dreams if we don’t dive fully into our lives.  Big dreams inspire action, and all action has an impact on the energy around us—it makes waves.  When we have an idea we start to feel a surge of creative energy inside of us and that energy needs to be expressed.  If we merely walk through life standing on our toes, we lose the full effect of what we can be because we minimize our impact.  This world is designed for us to create, to funnel our energy into creation.  It isn’t meant for us to stand on the sidelines hoping and wishing for something to happen.  In the pursuit of big dreams we may find ourselves guided toward something else, another big dream, or even just refining the dream we have.  It is the thought of something bigger that inspires us to take action.

As we discussed yesterday, we need the confidence to take action and assurance in our step.  We can’t develop our confidence if we aren’t using the full weight of our being.  No, things don’t always turn out how we expect them to, but as we learn to trust our abilities, we learn to adapt and refine the dream and we learn to apply those lessons to that dream.  So many things in this world have begun with the question of “what if” or “wouldn’t it be cool if” or even, “I think this would make it easier.”  Truthfully we never know how wide-ranging our ideas may have an impact—but if we don’t act on them or if we continue to act with restraint, we will never see the full impact regardless.  We need to trust that if we have an idea, we are meant to see it to fruition.  All of this is to say that we aren’t meant to shy away from the things that inspire us because that may inspire others as well. Simply sharing our action and our story may inspire people to go after their own idea/story as well.  The universe loves action and creation.  We aren’t meant to simply be cogs in this machine—a machine that, to be totally fair, was an invention as well.  As I’ve said before, if we created that machine, we can re-create it as well.

Creation is the alchemy of an idea, passion, faith, and action.  But all of that requires us to respond to that call with curiosity and follow through.  We should never ignore what our own heart/soul is telling us.  We should never take a half-hearted swing at what could create an entirely new trajectory for our lives.  We need to go for it.  The universe may not give us all the exact grand design of the dreams that we envision in our brains, but it will allow us to realize what we are capable of.  It will grant us the confidence to create more and to dream more.  I will add a caveat to this as well: we must not confuse greatness with popularity.  Some of the greatest ideas may not be the most popular or far-reaching, but just because they don’t have a world-wide reach doesn’t mean they aren’t great.  They were great to be realized for those who needed it.  We get to define greatness.  Anything that makes us happy and fulfilled, anything that puts us in the zone of creativity and purpose is great.  No one need bear witness to that to make it worthy/valid. We need to define that worth for ourselves.  So go after the dream that creates greatness in our lives and make it as grand as we want.  Let it take over and see how great it can be. 

“Tiptoeing through life is causing problems…put your feet flat,” Tabitha Brown.  Tab shared a message that we need to stop tiptoeing through life because toe-walking causes weakness, imbalance, and strain throughout the body.  The same is said when we don’t commit to living, more specifically, to living our purpose.  We can’t dance around the edges hoping that something will come of it—we need to dive in.  Last week I shared a video I made on IG about diving in.  I said when we wade through life, going half in and half out, the universe can’t pick up on the frequency we are sending out.  I understand the hesitance we feel: we don’t want to commit to something when we can’t see what’s coming.  But if we never dive in, we never learn to swim.  Similarly, if we only ever tiptoe through life, never making a noise and skimming the periphery, we never learn our own rhythm.  We never learn to walk to our own beat and, if we can’t walk, we certainly will never learn to dance—and we are meant to dance.

I’ve learned that if we don’t start moving, we will never move and we never experience the fulfilment of discovering all we are capable of.  It’s tempting to sit on the couch of life and observe others, criticizing what they are doing, or wishing we could do it.  But if we never DO it, then nothing will happen.  For a long time I thought it was impressive to not make waves but in doing so, I lost my identity.  When we stop making waves we stop living because the definition of living is making waves.  We send out energy and ripples into the universe with everything we do, it is simply the nature of living.  Doing nothing may keep things calm, but we will never experience all that life can be.  I found it interesting in speaking of the physical act of tiptoeing the amount of physical issues that arose from it.  I mean, it wasn’t surprising because I have a background in body work, but hearing the reminder and seeing how the body literally gets off balance is a sobering thing.  It is the same with life except it’s our energy signature that gets disturbed.    

As we develop confidence and assurance in our own step, we can put our weight behind it and follow through.  We are less concerned with the noise we are making than we are about ensuring it is heard.  As our confidence grows, we don’t mind being heard when we step through with ourselves.  We can let go of ego and worry and stand firmly in our decisions or learn from them.  So make decisions.  Make Choices.  Make the effort.  Take the chance.  All of those things create confidence in who we are and our abilities.  Suddenly the sounds we make are intentional and we move with ease.  Whatever metaphor you want to use, we learn how to dance or swim as we practice the steps.  For some of us learning to take the first step is enough.  That is a challenge in itself.  For others we want to develop our skills and we refine the choreography.  While some dancers are light-footed, I’ve never seen one who didn’t leave a mark.  So make your mark and let your life come into balance.  We will feel better physically and mentally. 

“The truth is this: by learning from your mistakes and experiences and by evolving through them, you practice the greatest form of self-love which is to grow,” unknown.  “Mistakes” is a broad term and a matter of interpretation—we can choose how we define it.  Some people are gifted with the ability to look at any situation in life as an opportunity.  We aren’t all going for the same goals so things that might appear to impede some won’t impede others—not everything matters in the same way to everyone.  If we’re not planning on being a professional athlete, then it doesn’t matter if we don’t try out for any sports, you know?  What is true, regardless of defining a situation as a mistake or not, is what we allow ourselves to experience and how we interpret that experience determines what we get from it.  I struggled with letting go of my ego and expectations and the thought patterns those habits created.  I firmly believed I knew what was “right.”  I didn’t ever want to veer from that course because it was known and safe.  But it still felt wrong. 

By repeating patterns that I’d learned from my family and developed through my experiences, I was inhibiting my own growth.  I wasn’t getting anything new—I wasn’t even able to replicate what those around me had.  So I was quite literally getting no where—not on their track or my own.  I had misinterpreted the point of life as repeating what I knew to perfection.  It wasn’t until many years later that I understood there might be a different purpose: learning and alchemizing this information into a broader, more universal lesson—and in some instances, a more personal lesson.  Perhaps a more precise lesson on letting go of what we know and integrating it to learn something new.  To become something new.  Habits and thought patterns like we’ve been talking about this week are beneficial when it comes to survival because the brain thrives in the known—it’s easier to recognize when something is different/a threat when it doesn’t match the patterns we know.  But it inhibits us from spreading our wings—and we have spent millennia learning to fly. 

As we learn to adapt and create new experiences, we create new thought patterns.  We can redefine how we look at mistakes, and we can redefine what a mistake is.  Humans are indeed meant to grow and evolve.  When we allow ourselves to be our most authentic self, we are evolving not only ourselves, but the world.  We are bringing new ideas and perspectives to the world.  This isn’t a punitive thing.  This is a spiritual thing.  This is a learning curve and no one knows how high the bell is set.  We simply need to live our lives and share what we know.  A mistake isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Sometimes things have to go wrong so we know which way to pivot so they can go right.  Growth isn’t always easy and it certainly isn’t pain-free.  Change is hard and requires a lot of dirty work.  But it is all worth it.  Rising from the darkness requires a lot of pushing through the dirt and ash.  But once we reach the top, we feel the light and we bloom.  Don’t inhibit ourselves because we think we veered in the wrong direction.  Simply keep pushing forward and allow the course to correct.  As we allow ourselves to be who we are and to fulfill our highest purpose, we learn what love is: the unconditional welcoming and acceptance of who we are.  How evolutionary/revolutionary of us.