Category Archives: Self Love

February 11, 2012

14 Days of Self-Love: Day 11 ~ Vivienne

I read a post yesterday by the wonderful Elizabeth Halt and it brought me to tears.

She spoke of coming home to herself.

I have both known that feeling and felt so far away from it as well.

Coming home feels to me like those moments where compassion pushes through all the other stories of who we think we should be, why we aren’t good enough, what is wrong with us, why we think we aren’t worthy and says “You are Home my Dear”.

It is tuning out all of those other stories, seeing and trusting our own.

Some days lately I stop and look at myself in the mirror, or in a photo. That girl with the vintage glasses and the long hair looks somehow changed from the girl I knew a year ago. Some times I just smile at her and all the other voices of critique quiet and I feel proud of her and what she is making of herself, abandoning her previously low expectations for herself. She feels like home.

I don’t feel like that every day. That is just the truth. It is an ongoing process, not something that one has mastered and can sell you the secret recipe for self-love.

The way home is woven into the story of who we are, and only we can find the threads to unravel the parts of the story that no longer work for us.

It is writing new stories and telling the old ones they aren’t invited anymore.

It is listening for our own voice.

It is not needing to be anyone that we are not.

It is home.

Let’s try to find a little bit of home today my friends. I’d love to hear about moments when you felt at home in your skin, in your life path, in your relationship to self-love…

February 10, 2012

14 Days of Self Love: Day 10 ~ Liz Lamoreux

As the light faded on a Wednesday evening last summer, I took a few self-portraits. I played with different angles and looks into the camera as the timer beeped. There was even a moment of laughter as I began to simply have fun. But then when I looked through the photos on the camera, I was so distracted by my arms and my tired eyes and…how the list goes on. So I put my camera straight in front of me, closed my eyes, and focused on filling my whole body with love and compassion. I took several breaths just imagining this compassion and love moving throughout my body. Then, while the timer beeped, I looked into the camera imagining I was looking at someone with only love (imagining the look my heart needed in that moment).

Later, when I looked through the photos, I noticed that my thoughts were softer. I saw beauty and a woman taking the time to just be in her life. I saw truth and realness and some wild, maybe even gorgeous, hair. And then I came to this photo and saw a woman choosing to love herself.

Interesting how all the other stuff melts away when you let love fill the cracks.

Try it.

I dare you.

Liz Lamoreux is a retreat host, teacher, author of Inner Excavation: Explore Your Self Through Photography, Poetry, and Mixed Media, and the artist behind the shop Soul Mantras and Other Stories. She believes that we heal each time we unearth our stories and share them through creativity and in community. And in this moment, she is probably singing in her studio as she listens to Paul Simon’s Graceland album and her one-year-old daughter plays with books and fabric scraps beside her, or maybe she is practicing what she teaches and they are both taking a nap.

February 9, 2012

14 Days of Self-Love: Day 9 ~ Stacy de la Rosa

Last year I gave myself the ultimate gift of what self love means for me – a ceremony of vows and agreements, a wedding if you will, to celebrate the love I have for me.

Prompted by a wedding I was photographing to witness new love, celebrating my own wedding anniversary of ten years and feeling a bit swirly in my own identity aside from being a wife and mother, I decided to commit to loving myself madly and deeply for the rest of this life by way of similar ceremony.

For me it was a way to honor my true self in the same way I honor those I also have commitments to in my life: namely my husband and my children.

So in November of 2011 I drove up the California coast to Cambria for a solo weekend to create and celebrate my own commitment ceremony to myself

What I discovered with this ceremony, as with any ceremony, is that it became much more than words that were said. Planning out a ceremony of agreements to myself, much in the same way I did with the wedding to my husband, made it very real and powerful.

I feel these sacred commitments to myself deeply and I witness myself able to show up for my life in ways that I struggled with before. I knew afterward that there was no going back to old habits and negative ways of thinking.

The vows I made to myself are ones that I truly honor and ones I will celebrate each year on my anniversary which I plan to celebrate each year on the California coast.

When I shared with my sister circle that I was creating this self love ceremony of agreements, one sent me this David Whyte poem. I read it to the sea at my agreements ceremony and it pretty much sums up self love for me.

All the true vows

All the true vows

are secret vows

the ones we speak out loud

are the ones we break.

There is only one life

you can call your own

and a thousand others

you can call by any name you want.

Hold to the truth you make

every day with your own body,

don’t turn your face away.

Hold to your own truth

at the center of the image

you were born with.

Those who do not understand

their destiny will never understand

the friends they have made

nor the work they have chosen

nor the one life that waits

beyond all the others.

By the lake in the wood

in the shadows

you can

whisper that truth

to the quiet reflection

you see in the water.

Whatever you hear from

the water, remember,

it wants you to carry

the sound of its truth on your lips.

Remember,

in this place

no one can hear you

and out of the silence

you can make a promise

it will kill you to break,

that way you’ll find

what is real and what is not.

I know what I am saying.

Time almost forsook me

and I looked again.

Seeing my reflection

I broke a promise

and spoke

for the first time

after all these years

in my own voice,

before it was too late

to turn my face again.

sea 1-1

Wedding Guests

sea

Where my ceremony took place – Moonstone Beach

Me after my ceremony, madly in love

February 8, 2012

14 Days of Self-Love: Day 8 ~ Amy Blum

Photo by Viv

The Self-Love of No

Sometimes the most loving thing we can do for ourselves is to say no to others. I find this excruciatingly hard, but I’m learning more and more of the short and long term benefits.

Saying no to a night of wine with friends so I can sleep off a cold. I love my friends and I gather such strength from being in their company, but last night my bed was beckoning and I can tell today that the time for myself was priceless in combatting this illness. Come to think of it, my friends are probably thankful I kept my germs to myself.

Saying no to an afternoon of work when my house was in desperate need of vacuuming and laundry doing. The cash is nice to have but with four kids, a dog and two cats the housework can quickly overtake me. Sacrificing the money for the peace of mind of a clean house was priceless.

When the calendar is full and we haven’t sat down together as a family in days, it’s nice to say no occasionally to school functions or extracurricular activities. The kids get to play, we eat together and play board games. Just being together is reward enough in knowing we made the right decision to forego the hectic schedule in favor of us time.

I am not one who says no easily. I am often overscheduled and frequently double booked. Taking some time to think through what saying yes will mean has allowed me to say no with more confidence and it has made all the difference in my life.

Amy Blum is the co-founder of Live it to the Full. She graduated with a BA in English from the University of Colorado at Denver, worked in magazine publishing with Colorado Homes and Lifestyles Magazine, has worked as a freelance writer and editor for nearly twenty years, wrote a series of articles on organic gardening for Examiner.com and has been blogging personally and professionally since 2005.

She lives in Denver, Colorado with the love of her life and their blended family of four boy children (2 of hers & 2 of his) a wild-eyed Australian Sheppard and two Hemingway cats. Her hobbies include gardening, knitting, art journaling, long walks in and around her neighborhood, date nights, and entertaining friends and family.

February 6, 2012

14 Days of Self-Love: Day 6 ~ Kristen Perman

There are times when eating properly, getting enough sleep and all of the other things I try to do to take care of myself isn’t enough. Too often, it’s the self-love, the time taken to be just me, Kristen, that gets pushed aside. I’m often the last person I take care of, (or think of), when time is at a crunch.

I’m blessed to live a few short blocks from the sea, the one place that I can ground myself and set myself back to center. Even ten minutes is enough. As my feet sink into the sand, I take in the briny air and I feel myself relax; my pace settling in with the cadence of the waves as they break on shore.

Kristen has a brand new photography website at: www.kristenperman.com and you can also connect with her via her flickr page and her blog: http://www.intheviolethour.com/