I was recently listening to my favorite podcaster Mel Robbins. If you aren’t already listening, check her out, she covers some great topics. She had an Asian American woman on the show that was talking about how, in her culture, she had never really heard the words ‘I Love You’ from her parents. She said that was typical of her culture. There is clearly much more to the podcast and it was a great episode (I won’t ruin it), but I couldn’t help but wonder how can you not tell your children you love them. Then it dawned on me, I’m sure they never heard it either. Perspective! We are products of our environment, we only know what we know. As humans, we need love – to love and accept ourselves AND to be and feel loved. On my journey, I have definitely had to learn to love myself. Expressing love for yourself and others isn’t easy, but it is worth it.
I’m currently reading Conversations with God and I keep re-reading parts because they are just so powerful. This one is worth sharing…
All human actions are motivated at their deepest level by one of two emotions – fear or love. In truth there are only two emotions – only two words in the language of the soul.
~Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations with God – book 1)
This couldn’t be more true. Think about it, I mean REALLY think about it. I have lived a good chunk of my life in fear. I had fear surrounding starting this blog and then ironically I dove into what I LOVE – writing, cooking and helping others. Voila, my blog was born out of both fear AND love!
I received this awesome quote from a friend. Thank you for sending this, people NEED this reminder, I needed this reminder. Take that leap into the unknown and punch fear right in the face. No such thing as failing, just lessons (thank you to another friend for that amazing reminder). I’m personally working on not overthinking things and just doing (like Nike says – Just Do It). Overthinking is fear-based. When we release that idea of perfection (what is perfection anyway) and Just Do It…then we have replaced Fear with Love. We need to love ourselves enough to know that what we are saying and doing is coming from a place of love and how others receive your message is on THEM. I’m going to repeat that for the folks in the back row…if what we are saying and doing is coming from a place of love, how others receive your message is on THEM.
The biggest take away I’d love for you to have from this post is to learn to love YOU! After all, you are around yourself the most. Sounds silly, but it’s true. It’s not selfish to love yourself or do things for yourself. You know the saying – You can’t pour from an empty cup. Fill up that cup with all the things that bring you pure joy!
And this has zero to do with love or fear. Just sharing that sometimes THIS is dinner. I still made flank steak for my son, but was craving these roll-up’s (turkey, laughing cow cheese and pickled asparagus – don’t knock it ’till you tried it).
I’d love to hear from you – comments, questions, suggestions, I will take it all in. Thank you for your support. Permission to go buy yourself some flowers and one more permission slip this time – permission to spread love and love YOU, just as you are.
