Do You Love Yourself?

February 4, 2024

February is all about Love and Relationships. Much of what you will see “out there” points to celebrating and honoring romantic relationships, which I think is great.

Please do that.

And at the same time, this month, I invite you to spend some time on how well you love yourself.

Why?

Because our capacity to love others is directly related to our ability to love and accept ourselves.

We are not really taught HOW to truly love and accept ourselves. All the bits and pieces, the good, the bad, the ugly, the dark shadowy parts, the lazy parts, the tired parts, the judgmental parts, the grumpy parts, the angry parts, the sad parts, the scared parts, the controlling parts, the deceptive parts, the weak and undisciplined parts.

The HUMAN parts.

We live in a culture that focuses on perfection and does not celebrate the messy parts that are a naturally occurring part of life.

We are actually addicted to being perfect or at least appearing perfect, and this addiction is causing so much harm and disconnection.

First, disconnection with ourselves….we turn away from or deny the parts we judge as unattractive and then disconnect with others when their shadowy parts arrive on the scene.

In all my years on this planet, I have not yet found a flawless Human Being. And believe me, I have been looking 🙂!

So this month, I am inviting you to take some time to discover all the ways you are caught up in the ‘pursuit of perfection matrix’ and open up to all your perfectly messy and loveable shadowy parts.

Make a short list of the ways you judge yourself, criticize yourself, dishonor yourself, put yourself down.

(A mindfulness practice can help btw! Sometimes, you need to get quiet enough to hear all those voices)

If you have a hard time seeing it in yourself, then catch the ways you judge others and then turn inward.

• When you grow impatient in traffic and find yourself criticizing someone’s driving, look at the ways you are impatient with yourself.
• When someone makes a mistake, what do you do, think, or say, and find the ways you do the same to yourself when making a mistake.

Begin to make a list of all the ways you judge and criticize others so you can find all the ways you expect perfection in yourself.

Get to know yourself deeply and begin to honor and accept your humanity. All of it.

Because this game of life and loving is not at all about being perfect. It is simply about accepting the messy imperfections along the way.

Take time this month to see more clearly and fall more deeply in love with yourself so that you can truly love others the ways we all desire to be loved.

Completely & Unconditionally.

It all starts within.

Wishing you grace.

With gratitude,

Annmarie Chereso
Author, Speaker, Coach, & Meditation Teacher