Have You Ever Thought About What It Feels Like to Love Yourself?

I did… and it felt like the great void.

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” — Lucille Ball

I meditated this morning (thank you very much, pat on back), and like a bolt of lightning striking my neocortex, I realized something pretty jolting.

When you love yourself unconditionally, life moves along with more ease.

Here are my two thoughts on self-love today:

#1. How deeply do you love yourself?

SUCH an awkward question, right? Like… love myself? I never even thought about it or how it’s supposed to feel — I mean, do I even like myself? could be a better question.

But during my meditation this morning, the centering theme was about love and loving yourself, and guiding voice prompted me to FEEL THE LOVE inside.

That’s the point where my 100-mph mind hit the brakes.

What do you mean “feel” the love? Right here, right now? For myself?

Listen, maybe you love yourself all the time so this is not a foreign concept, but to “feel” it in our bodies? I was coming up blank.

Am I on the lookout for a warming sensation somewhere? Is it an enveloping lightness? Is it the opposite of stress, guilt, worry, anxiety, and fear? (Because those? I know.)

But pure love? The only thing my mind could come up with — and maybe that’s not the entity that should be weighing in — was that it knew what love felt like when it came to my children. I don’t think I feel the same way about myself though.

I didn’t feel anything. (Is that death?)

There was no welling up of emotion, or that almost painful eruption you sometimes feel when your kid is just so friggin’ awesome you can’t believe your luck and your heart is going to burst. I’m gonna say I never really felt that way, for myself.

But wait a minute…. WAIT A MINUTE!

Thought #2: What if I felt like that toward myself? How AWESOME would life all of a sudden become?

Because imagine what life would be like if you loved yourself unconditionally. (See, now I’m assuming you’re with me on this existential quest for self-love!) If you could say to yourself, you know what Self? You’re a fkn cool ass chic and I’ll hang out with you any day of the week because your vibe is so Tinkerbell sweet, and the way you dress is kickin, and your hair is always amazing—even when it’s not—and your food makes my tummy happy. Not to mention, the way you’ve raised your kids so far—you need to write THE book on parenting and hand it out to new parents as they leave the hospital with their newborns.

(And this is all done in a non-arrogant way, it’s just all flowing directly from love which we know comes from the source — the big ONE — the Omni-present — God or whatever you call it.)

What if you were ALL ABOUT yourself? What if you never again thought you weren’t “good enough”? Because what is that even about? Who would we be then? (And by the way who hands out the “good enough” awards? Is there a red carpet-event for that? Why do we always belittle ourselves with the “not good enoughs”?)

I think a lot of us don’t fully recognize how much we don’t let the love flow through us, for us. If I loved myself, there would be a lot more going on that’s right, instead of trying to live up to this image of myself that has to be perfect in some, or all, ways.

How sad I’ve never paid attention to the love I have for myself, or allowed myself to really feel it. I let all the shortcomings I believe to be true about myself take center stage and obscure all the good things with all the things I don’t do right.

That’s why fear, worry, and anxiety show up alongside me like we’re in a potato sack race together — always tripping me up.

Imagine how life would be different if we all loved ourselves so fiercely. How great would this world be?

I’ll leave you with this: May we all love ourselves so fiercely that we no longer hold onto the idea that we’re not good enough (because they don’t hand out awards for that sh*t!)