Falling in Love with Yourself
Staggering beauty as a Way In
I was putting together a "Love Drop" on Instagram this morning and started reflecting on a decision I made several years ago that completely changed my life.
I made a clear and conscious decision to fall in love with myself.
I am not sure I had ever really been “in love” with myself up until that point. Had someone forgot to mention to me that is really really important?
What does saying you love yourself amount to, anyway? Saying you love yourself can be nuanced, for sure. For me, it was dismissed as a pallid recipe for self-care that included a passive-aggressive prescription to join a gym.
I wanted real love.
The kind of love that means you are cherished and esteemed while ridiculously overlooking a constant stream of slip-ups, gaping misjudgments, and not-so-pretty personality traits, the kind of love that steams off of your skin.
And I wanted this love to LAST.
When you fall in love, you release endorphins, and science wants to convince us that these are fleeting when it comes to romance and that these "feelings" can't be trusted. Somewhere on our way to adulthood, someone convinces us that we will need to chase this satisfying high that love brings us through other means.
A true romantic innately knows that this "feeling" can be nurtured and coaxed and that you can live an entire lifestyle being in love.
The day that I realized I needed to fall in love with myself was the day that I committed to being a true romantic.
I had to get specific and ask myself what that looked like to me. The first honest (and challenging) thing I had to admit was that I could not waste any more time trying to convince other people to love me.
(Insert the Miley Cyrus line: I can love me better than you can)
I didn't need to waste anybody's time, including my own, on the effort and the emotional toll it takes to get someone to see me, appreciate me, and love me madly.
I had to figure out how to do it myself because the rest of my life was at stake. How I showed up on a daily basis, how I chose to spend my precious time, and what I decided to prioritize in my life all needed to take place through the lens of falling in love.
Falling is an action word. You typically fall rapidly and without control.
I needed to fall in love with myself with unbridled passion and without judgment so I decided to soak up every bit of tangible and intangible beauty I could find. That was my first action point; even if it was to soak up sunshine streaming in on the kitchen table, I needed to feel it with my entire being. It grew from there.
I started with "staggering beauty" as my "Way In."
Last night, while packing up the house, I found old stacks of journals that are basically the love letters to myself. I looked back through the pictures I had taped inside and enjoyed how I allowed myself to dream without restraint. I found a snippet inside one that read, “staggering beauty is the draw-the way in.”
I can see how it has been my North Star in all my art and life choices since that time. My entire life started to shift when I fell in love with myself and in the best ways possible. I couldn't have predicted how much romance was to follow.
People ask me when I know an artwork is "finished." It's when I step back from a piece and say out loud, "Ok, that is beautiful."
So, from the true romantic who writes to you in your inbox...search out some beauty today and fall in love.
Until next time, Monica
Beautiful words and inspiration. I was with you the entire article, and then when you said at the very end, how you know a painting is done - as a painter, that’s a question I always get too, and I know that feeling. To relate it to falling in love with yourself, I get it. I can feel that. And now I know just what to do when I feel fallen out of that love. Such a beautiful mirror. Thank you ❤️
Thank you Monica. I watched the Grammy's with Miley Cyrus, as usual, created the curiosity I need to dig in to myself. Her song, 'Flowers' and your art along with my own interpretation of them is the sweet gift I grant myself. It IS part of falling in live with myself. I forget that, especially when I am aware that my 'job' requires that I try to inspire others, to get them to look at art, to learn why if they do, it could change their life. So, it's always nice to just take the time to enjoy it because it reminds me off. how much I love myself. Happy Valentine's Day to the romantics in all of us.