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This Is All For You

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This is all for you. A beautiful lone flower sits in a garden.I have been receiving such special emails from so many of you. Some of you are just saying hello and letting me know you're out there enjoying my blog posts, others of you writing for some advice and support for what you're going through, and still others with such kind words that you bring me to tears!

With each and every email or comment I get I feel even more inspired to bring you that support, that empowerment and love that is so often missing when you're on this journey of learning to love yourself and learning how to attract and recognize that true love we're all looking for. It is the very core of our being to be loved, to be held in love, to be with someone who loves us just as we are, and to have someone to love with all the love in our hearts; someone truly worthy of our loving, giving selves.

All too often we get lost along the way, and find ourselves like a ship without a light, trying to navigate stormy, dark waters without any help in sight. Then, when it seems all hope is lost and we have no resources remaining, we find the strength somewhere deep within to bring ourselves out of such circumstances and we find we have everything we need to bring ourselves back to shore, back to the light of ourselves that turns out to be right inside us. It was there all along. We just needed that beacon, that light, that inspirational word to remind us of all that we are and all that we have already.

We've just forgotten.

I know just how dark that place can be at times. And I know that without support, without someone cheering you on, being there for you, it can be so hard to see what is really true.

And that's why I'm here.

With every email and comment that you write, I hear what you're going through. My heart goes out to each and every one of you as I know that regardless of our individual circumstances, we all share that need to be supported and reminded of everything we forget in those dark places in time.

I was thinking about the words I see in your emails, and I see so many of them over and over again. Words like "being ok with him not calling", "getting over the love of my life", "how can I go on", "how long does it take to get over someone" and on and on. Behind your words, I see you, that special person inside that has so much to offer, so much love to give, and yet is so often settling for so much less than you deserve, all in the name of something that feels like love, but so often is just the opposite. The sounds of a heart breaking, of soft tears falling are barely audible in all the noise all around us, but I hear them. And I feel what you're going through behind those sounds.

So, right now, whatever you're going through, I would invite you to let me know how I can help you. What are you struggling with?  What do you need?  How can I help? What can I do to help you learn to love that beautiful woman that is you?

It is because of each one of you that I am here. I'm here for each one of you through these rough times until you, too, sit on the other side and reflect back with me on how this journey has all been worth it in the end.

Changes

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Beautiful woman going through a big change in her life. She is packing and moving boxes.We’re in the middle of moving across the country. And it’s a whole different kind of move when you’re moving a family, two dogs, a lizard, and fish. There are more people and things to consider, with the heart of it being that I have the responsibility of making it as easy a transition as possible.

It’s very different from the moves I used to make as a single girl, in what seems like a short lifetime ago, where my only concern was finding the coolest place to live in with the highest population of single men possible.

Back in those single days, when a married friend of mine would be moving with her family, I was usually full of sadness. Not just because they were leaving me, but also because it was yet another reminder that I was alone, with no family giving me a reason to move.

I was the only person that I moved for, and I didn’t understand anything about that being enough way back then. It just sounded all too lonely when I compared my own life to the ones of my married girlfriends that I wanted so badly.

And so it is that I find myself going back in time and reminiscing about those moves I did back in my single days, when it was only me without much of a care in the world besides when I would finally find Mr. Right and when I thought of each move as an exciting adventure of discovery.

I remember one of my biggest moves was when I took a job transfer to another part of the country. It was so exciting. A chance to meet new people, maybe even the one, was the way I thought of it back then. A new adventure. Oh, it was an adventure all right, and I met someone who I sure thought was the one, only to come face to face with the reality of just how badly a heart can be broken when you let someone in too soon and stay far too long for your heart and soul’s own good.

Then there was the move back home, but to a new home, to a place where I would start my journey of discovery of myself, after finally landing back on my feet after more tears had been shed over another him than could fill the entire ocean. Beginning again, finding my way, making a life for myself as an individual when all my hopes and dreams for my life had been caught up in a him who could never have lived up to my misguided expectations.

And finally, there was the move when I packed up all my belongings in the back of my little Honda Civic and headed off to the land of sunshine in Southern California, full of anticipation that this was finally going to be my time, my adventure, my time to finally find myself … and him. And that was exactly where I did find him, but not before I had finally found myself for the first time in my life, in a way that I had never understood was necessary before.

But this isn’t just about me. It’s about what I learned along the way. It’s about what I understand now about how it all fits together in a way that can only be understood with the gift of hindsight and having been there before in every sense of the word. It’s what I wish I had understood and known way back at the beginning of it all.

It’s about seasons.

And how each and every season of life has a purpose and a meaning and a reason. Even the ones we don’t want to be in or wish would end before they even begin. Especially the ones where we can’t figure out the why of them. Especially those where we just want to be on to the next one. Each season is necessary on some level to take you through to the next one, even if it doesn’t make sense at the time. The point is, when you look back, you’ll understand, you’ll see, you’ll see why. There’s a reason. But so often we fight the reality of the season that we’re in, questioning the wisdom of anyone who dare suggest it’s part of our story. We don’t want that part of our story, much less to acknowledge that it might be a necessary one.

It’s a simple message, but embracing it is anything but simple: Don’t get so caught up in the next season of life that you forget to enjoy the one you’re currently in.

Each season has its upsides and downsides. So often when we’re in it, wishing we were anywhere but where we are right now, we don’t see any of the good in it. We don’t see the wonderful things about it. But it’s all there. In this single season of your life, there’s the freedoms, that lack of responsibility, the ability to do anything without taking into consideration the rest of a family or other people (or animals) involved. The abundance of time you can spend focusing solely on yourself without having anyone else to pull you away from discovering and embracing the you that you truly are inside.

I get that it’s all too lonely too much of the time. I get that it’s hard to enjoy the now when you’re scared there never will be a next. All those fears that surface that keep us looking forward to that next season, the one where we will finally no longer be alone, that we can’t even enjoy all the benefits of the now.

But stop right there. Don’t look ahead anymore. It’s your time right now. Right here, right now. It’s time to embrace it even with the fear, the unknown, and with all its uncertainties. To enjoy, to embrace, to live life to its fullest right now. The rest will all happen in due time. Just as it is meant to be.

But for now, this season is yours, too. Don’t wait until you’re looking back to enjoy where you’re at right now. This is the season of your life known as YOU!

It's Time to Be Selfish

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It's time to be selfish - Road sign pointing in different directions to "I want", "You want" "We want", and "They want".I know; we've all been brought up to be very good little girls. And we've become very well-behaved women. We learned well that we were to put others needs before our own, and not be selfish. And we've done just that, haven't we.

We're oh so good at meeting everyone's needs except our own. We know all too well how to take care of other people, especially the men in our lives that we've made so many excuses for over the years. We can cater to everyone else with an amazing sensitivity to what they need, and we know how to make them feel good about themselves.

But in the process there's someone whose needs we've overlooked over and over and over again; yes, I'm talking about you.  And the role you play all too well. At the expense of yourself and your own needs.Continue Reading

Beautiful Goodbye

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Sad beautiful woman checking phone after boyfriend broke up with her over text.
With each goodbye we lose hope.

I recently went searching for a song that I couldn't quite remember but couldn’t get out of my head, and I finally found it… A Beautiful Goodbye, by Amanda Marshall. She's a Canadian singer from a decade or so ago whose passion for life and love came through over and over again in her songs.

It got me thinking about the goodbyes that we all experience in our lives, the ones that let go of us, the ones we let go of, and the ones we should let go of and don't, and I realized that these lyrics just said everything that I was thinking about perfectly.

I turned up the volume and found myself going back in time. Back to my own painful goodbyes that were so rarely of my own choosing, but were all part of my learning and growing process, even if nothing could have convinced me of that at the time. As I listened to each of her words, everything came flooding back in a swell of tears and emotion.

It made me realize that every time there had been a goodbye, a goodbye that seemed so insignificant to him, every single time, was so painfully heart wrenching for me. As if he had just reached into me and torn my heart right out. For him, it always seemed, it was nothing more than a casual goodbye. And many times there wasn't even a formal goodbye - it just more or less dissolved until it was apparent to me that we just weren't dating any more. I was left alone again with nothing but my broken heart.

But for all of their casual nonchalance, for me it was nothing less than my world crashing down around me. It wasn’t just about me having to let go of yet another relationship that hadn’t kept up to its full potential (which was more of my own making in my own fantasy in my head, than the reality of what the relationship actually was), it was about losing my hopes, my dreams, my fantasies; all those things that little girl inside of me still believed, still wanted. And with each goodbye, with each end, I was losing hope.

As I finished listening to the song, I imagined all the pain and heartbreak of every woman who has ever experienced that kind of goodbye, where she doesn’t realize that it’s not just about the end of a relationship, but in some way, it’s actually the end of a little bit more of her. I don’t think it’s just an accident that Amanda Marshall is singing from a rooftop in the video, or that the scraps of paper are falling to the ground below, or that the wine glass finally falls so gracefully, yet forcefully from the sky to shatter into a million pieces on the ground below, just like our hearts. It's never just about a goodbye, it's about so much more than that. It's our very hearts and souls on the line.

How is it that we allow someone into our lives with such ease and without questioning whether or not they are worthy of being in any kind of a relationship with us before we let them in? How do we forget that we are worth so much more than that? What about you? What about your life? Your passions? Your soul? Your gifts to the world? Your you!

These men who end up saying goodbye, or who never say the words but just disappear from our lives, are so not worthy of any of those beautiful parts of your heart and soul! It's time to let them go. To stop letting them in in the first place. It's time to take back your own power, even if it feels like you no longer have any. It's still all there. It might be buried so deep down inside that you've forgotten you have any, but believe me, it's still there.

This is about you now. It's time to start making choices that are in the best interests of you. So let them go.

Stop the settling for anything less than you deserve to be treated. If he doesn’t treat you like the beautiful woman you are, refuse to settle for those kinds of crumbs. Be absolutely clear first with yourself on how exactly you deserve to be treated, and get that crystal clear before you even accept a date with a guy, and then, and only then, observe his character, see how he treats you - what he says and does - and don’t give him anything of yourself until he shows you that he’s worthy of all that you have to offer. Not anything.

Let him prove his worth to you. Let him show you what he has to offer. Watch and observe. Don’t give yourself away. Not emotionally, not physically, not mentally, not in any way no matter how amazing he seems. Until you know him well enough to consider letting him in. And then only on your terms. Not on his. Because you are the one who has worth. You are the one with everything to offer. Let him prove to you that he is deserving of you, not the other way around.

You, beautiful, radiant, loving you, deserve nothing less than this!

Don’t Ever Let Your Heart Get Hardened

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Don't let your heart get hardened - image of heart wrapped in steelHave you ever had a song, one that you haven’t heard in years, just start playing in your head?  It happened to me the other day, and I realized I was actually singing it softly to myself.

It was a song that used to be one of my favorites back in my single days, and it had been my mantra many times after a devastating break up.  I’d long since forgotten it, but at the time, I would belt out the lyrics at the top of my lungs (often with tears rolling down my face) whenever I was driving and it came on the radio.  It just described me and my love situation over and over again.

The song was Insensitive by Jann Arden, and if anyone seemed to get what I was going through, it was her.  I just knew that she’d been through it herself once or twice and knew all too well exactly what it felt like.

You may not know the song, since she was a Canadian singer (it may just have been popular in Canada at the time), but the line that really got me was “I thought that you might have some advice to give, on how to be insensitive”.

So I found myself singing it out loud once again, only this time it was very different.  Now I really get what I just didn’t get back then.  That there wasn’t anything wrong with me.

I wasn’t too sensitive, and I certainly didn’t need a lesson in being insensitive.  It was that he wasn’t sensitive enough to be with me!  Or, to put it a different way, I just needed to be with someone who was sensitive to my needs, and if the guy I was with wasn’t, then he wasn’t the right guy for me.

But I didn’t get that at the time.  Or even for a long time after.  I just thought I was too soft, and I needed to toughen up.  That I needed to be different than I was.

Of course, while I’m sure that Jann Arden wasn’t really looking to become insensitive, unfortunately for so many of us, this is exactly what happens.  After one too many heartbreaks, we become cynical, insensitive, even bitter.  And our hearts get hardened.

Head over Heels

It starts off innocently enough.  We meet a guy, the sparks start flying, and before we know it, we’re in way over our heads.  Who can resist that kind of chemistry?   The next thing we know, we can’t think of anything but him; he’s everything we've ever wanted in a guy.  But the truth is, we’re so attracted to the idea of him that we haven’t had a chance to get to know the actual him!

You know what I’m talking about.  He’s got that way about him; we can’t quite describe it, but it’s something about the way he carries himself, the ways he exudes that confidence, that charisma, that magnetism that draws us to him and makes us feel so special just because we're with him.  We feel worthy.  Chosen.

And we’re finally able to prove to everyone (and to ourselves) that we really matter.  That we really can get someone to love us.  That we’re loveable.

He tells us everything we want to hear.  He takes us places we’ve never been before.  It’s exciting.

But then, after a while, we find that we’re left a little wanting when we’re with him.  We’re not sure what’s going on, wondering where things are going, feeling a bit insecure.  We just haven’t connected the dots to see that it’s because we’re drifting far from our true selves again.  For a guy.  Again.

But we keep our head in the clouds and we don’t see anything, except that this guy has made us feel alive like we’ve never felt before, and we’re just not ready to give that up yet.  We just want to keep believing that this time it will turn out differently.

Until it finally comes crashing down around us and we find ourselves back in the land of reality checks where we’re forced to acknowledge the truth, what it really was (and wasn’t), and how it really was the same thing all over again.

And that’s when it happens.

A Hardened Heart

It hurts so bad that you resolve to never let yourself feel that strongly ever again.  That fragile, blown glass heart of yours that’s been shattered and pieced back together again too many times starts to become harder.  Tougher.

But there’s good news.

This time, there’s one thing that’s different.  You’ve got me.  I’m here.

And I’m here to tell you what I was fortunate enough to have some very special people tell me right when I needed to hear it the most; the words that saved my own fragile heart from becoming hardened:

There’s nothing wrong with you.

Nothing.  Nada.

Sweet, tender, soft, loving, sensitive you.

He just wasn’t the right guy for you.  He’s not a bad guy but he’s not the one for you.  No matter how much you wanted him to be.  He’s not.

All those feelings you had, all those wonderful times you shared, they were real.  To you.  And maybe to him, too.  But the reality is, he didn’t have it in him to give you the respect, the attention, the sensitivity, the love that you truly deserve!  The stuff that real, loving, equal relationships are made of.  And it doesn’t matter why.  It doesn’t matter what is or isn’t going on for him.  It won’t change a thing.

So after you’ve had your cry, called your friends whose silence or comments only make you feel worse, spent your days in bed not wanting to get out, played every one of your favorite break up songs, and gone over every possible scenario of what happened and how you could have done things differently to keep the relationship going, it’s time to hear what I've got to say.

You are beautiful, you are worthy of true love, and you are wonderful.

And you aren’t too sensitive.

Please don’t ever become hard.  Please don’t ever become bitter.  And please don’t ever become insensitive.

That’s no way to live.  For anyone.  And especially not for you.

So embrace your sensitive you.  Embrace your tender, soft heart that just wants to love someone and be loved back.  Embrace that sweet romantic self that, however naïve it may seem, just wants to believe in true love.  In what he said.  In what he told you.  In how you thought it was between the two of you.

Because when you love like that, it can hurt.  There might be heartbreak.  But that’s the kind of love that reminds you you’re truly alive.

You feel, deeply.  You sense, wholly.  You believe, completely.

And don’t change a thing about those qualities.  Because you will meet that guy who’s been looking for a sweet, tender, soft, loving, sensitive woman like you his whole life, too, and those beautiful qualities you hold will not be lost on him, but will be cherished as the gifts of love they truly are when they're shared with the right person.

And I can guarantee he won’t have anything to teach you about being insensitive.

To Love is to Risk

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Street sign saying the words risk ahead.
There's always the risk of getting hurt.

Some email correspondence I had with a reader last week got me to thinking about how life is really all about taking risks. And how anything worth having usually requires risking something of ourselves.

Like love.

Especially when we’re talking about love in the truest sense of the word.

Because when we put ourselves out there and share part of ourselves with another person, whether it’s in the emotional or physical sense, there’s always the risk that our feelings will not be reciprocated; that someone else may take advantage of our good will, our purest intentions, our selfless love.

And there’s always the risk that we will be hurt in the process.Continue Reading

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