Journey of Love

"Your life is a journey of learning to love yourself first and then extending that love to others in every encounter."  ~Oprah

Last week I challenged you to double down on your goodness to others. Because quite honestly, our world needs to reconnect and embrace loving kindness as a consistent practice in order to begin to heal. But if you don’t love yourself or your life, it can be difficult to extend love to others. Think about it, those people in the world that are so hateful and mean… do you think they actually love themselves or their life? I’m guessing, no.  

Loving yourself plays an important part in how you show up in the world. Once you love and respect yourself, you can give to others from a heart full of love, respect, generosity and kindness. But if you don't have enough love for yourself or your life, then a couple things can happen.

Either you find you give what little you do have to others with no regard for yourself. This is what I call "sacrificing yourself for the sake of others". And it usually results in feeling angry or resentful. If you find you rarely care for yourself or make yourself a priority, it’s a sure sign that you need to work on loving yourself more. Then the other thing that may happen, if your heart is empty, bitter or filled with hate, is you will likely project that out to others. Treating people badly with disrespect, disregard, judgment, hatefulness, etc. Know anyone like that?

Until you can find a way to allow love to blossom from within for yourself you will never feel the full capacity of love for others. So where are you on your journey to loving yourself? Do you often take detours into dark corners of judgement or hate? Do you find yourself trudging through criticism as you drag along the feeling of "not enough"? Or do you walk the path of unconditionally love with respect and belief in yourself as your companion?

This week... Take some time to reflect on what you love about yourself and where you are on your journey of self love. Then do something to show a little love to yourself and to others. It's time to heal and love... first yourself and then the world.

***I want to hear from you... How do you express love to yourself and others? How did you double down on your goodness last week? 

***Send an email to [email protected] with the subject line: Doubling Down and letting me know what acts of love and kindness you plan to start practicing regularly for yourself and others. And in return, I’ll send you a gift of love from me.