Loving me is loving you.

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They say that music is the universal language.  I'd like to believe that love is the universal unifier.  Love is something that many look for all of their lives, and yet few people are able to really live love because they find it so hard to love themselves.  It seems to me that loving who and what you are should be so simple and yet it seems that so many, many people are unable to do this. Why is that so?

I want to spell out some of the impediments to self love, and maybe dispel some of the myths of self love.  Sadly some people feel that self love is nothing more than conceit.  Loving who and what you are is not conceit; in actuality it is imperative if you are ever going to fully walk in your destiny and be the one thing you were always intended to be.  I've said this so many times in the past but today I will say it again in an attempt to get you to really let it sink in.  If you are unable to love yourself then you will never ever be able to love someone else 100 percent, nor will you be able to receive someone else's love 100 percent.  One of the reasons I'm able to love our dog Lucy so much is because she only knows unconditional love.  When she gives me all of her love it's impossible for me not to love her back.  Unconditional love is just that, unconditional.  Lucy does not love me because of what I do for her, except when she knows a treat is coming, then the tail really starts to wag, but I digress.  She loves unconditionally because that is her nature.  What is your nature when it comes to love?  Sadly many people base their understanding of love on past love, or lack thereof.  How you love is never ever going to be able to be measured by the love you have experienced in life.  Love has to be based on your own love for you.  I'll say it again, you have to love you, I mean really love you, then and only then will you be able to experience real love from someone else.

I love my husband unconditionally.  Certainly there are days when I want to wipe him off the face of the earth, as I am human, but the love I have for him is endless.  Some say we are soul mates, I agree, but even soul mates have to know true self love to give true love, and that all starts with recognizing the real you.  I may be repeating the same thing over and over again, but the key to this whole thing we call love is looking yourself in the mirror each day and telling yourself how much you love you.  At first this simple exercise may seem trivial and ridiculous, but I assure you it will start something that will change your life.  After so many years I can finally say I love me.  I fought feelings of regret in the past.  I rolled around in a pit of despair in regards to how I saw my future.  There was even a time when I wanted to simply fall asleep at night and not wake up the next morning.  I know that during these moments I was not loving who I was, and that is a dangerous place to be.  I love me more now than ever before.  It has taken me years to get to this point, but I will tell you that my life has changed.

Many times I get the question of how do you love yourself?  The first step is to  understand the significance of your being.  You need to accept that your design is perfection because you being here right now is in the perfection of the universe.  You are not here by mistake.  If you can accept the premise of your perfection then you can start accepting that you are love, created out of love and for the purpose of giving and accepting love.  The intention of the Universe brought you here and it is in this intention that you must live.  Living in intention is what love is all about, and this love is what will allow you to love unconditionally and loving unconditionally will teach you to love yourself.

Our worth is not in what we have obtained in life, or what we have accomplished.  Our worth is in fact who and what we are.  Once you understand the significance of your own being, then and only then can you love who you are, and then you can receive love from others.  "Loving me is loving you" is a statement.  It says that when I love me I can love you.  There is no other way to live, if living is what you truly desire.  When you look into that mirror what do you see?  If you see all your past hurts, or failures, you are not seeing the real you.  Past hurts and failures are lessons that should have taught you something.  Look past the past and see who you really are.  If you can begin to love you simply because you are you, then and only then will you experience the love that is there for you.

I love me because I want and desire to love others, and receive love from others.  Love is the center of all that we are, all that we hope to be, and all that we should be focused on.  If you can love yourself unconditionally then you can change the world.  Experiencing true love begins with you.  Knowing true love is knowing that I am love, and knowing that I am love allows me to love you and experience true love to the fullest extent possible.  If you want to experience the warm and fuzzies of love then wrap your arms around yourself and tell yourself how much you love you.  When you can see all of your greatness then you will begin to see the greatness in others.  You were not placed here to be alone, but being alone is what you will experience until such time as you accept your own love for you.  Life is great as long as you understand your own greatness.  It's never too late to turn things around.  Begin to see what is reflected back at you from the mirror and love what you see.  You are one of a kind, and no one can do what you were created to do.  It all begins with love because your beginning was because of love.

It's all up to you.

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Some people seem to leave everything in life up to chance.  Others, have everything planned out to the smallest and simplest details, leaving absolutely nothing to chance.  There's a group of people who try to straddle both, not quite sure what the correct path is for anything.  In actuality your life is your life, and whatever happens in your life is entirely up to you.  Now there will be those who will argue about this until the cows come home, but facts are facts.  We create our own reality by the words we speak, the feelings we hold on to, and the thoughts we have at any given moment.  What I want you to think about today is what kind of life have you created for yourself.

We as humans, at least many of us, try as hard as we can to please those around us.  Now there's all kinds of reasons for this.  Some people simply want to be accepted and will do just about anything to fit into the cool crowd.  Others will do anything to be different, as if being different is being different at all since so many people have the same idea.  No matter where you fall on the scale it's always best to simply be yourself and don't worry what everyone else is doing.  Being true to yourself is really the only option you have if you want to experience life to the fullest.  Being true to yourself is really the only option you have if you want to walk in your destiny and fulfill the purpose for you being here.  Given the option to be the real you or simply be what others want you to be, what option do you think would be a better fit for you?

I spent the better part of my youth always looking for approval from others.  To be honest I did so many things in my life simply because I felt others would see what a great job I did and I would finally get the recognition I thought I deserved.  Yes I was very successful at most things, but truth be told not much of what I did was for me.  As much success as I had during my formative years, I still had an emptiness inside of me, and that void was not going to be filled by the praise and accolades I received from other people.  Granted I see that clearer today, and not so much back then when I was trying to please everyone else.  Here's the best rule of thumb:  be you, just you, and for you.  So many people will feel as though that when you do for yourself that is nothing more than just selfishness.  On the contrary, when you focus on you that is selflessness.  If you never focus on you then you are never going to realize how significant you are to the rest of the universe.  Far too many people see themselves as insignificant, and that is simply setting yourself up for failure.

I want to encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and start focusing on what is going to make you happy.  Start focusing on those things that are going to really bring you fulfillment.  Start seeing yourself as the center and not just someone who walks around the outside of things hoping that someday they will be in the middle of things.  If you are spending all of your time trying to fit in, you are going to be one unhappy camper when things seem to go all whacko on you.  What are the chances that you will always be able to do things in life that are going to make everyone happy?  It's highly unlikely that you are going to be able to do the right thing for everyone else especially when most of those other people haven't a clue as to what they really want in life.  Start focusing on you.  Start doing what makes you happy.  Begin to live the life you were intended to live and stop worrying what others might think or might say about your decisions.  There are millions of opinions out there from other people who have zero idea of who you really are, so why in the world would you ever feel as though you need to listen to those opinions?

How you live your life is totally up to you.  What you do next is totally up to you.  How you see things is totally up to you.  Stop giving in to what others think, and simply do what you know.  When it's all said and done you control you.  You can't blame others for the decisions you make so why not make decisions based on what is best for you and not someone else?  You can help others but stop helping others because you feel you have no other choice.  You always have a choice and I would recommend that you start making choices that are going to benefit you.  There is a time when helping others, being there for others, is appropriate, but if you have not taken the time to fill up your own tank, you will not have what it takes to help someone else.

Figure out those things that make you happy and go after them.  We only have a finite amount of time that we inhabit this body of ours.  If you are wasting time worrying about what others think about you then you are never going to get to the point in life where you are truly happy and content. It really is up to you how you are going to live your life.  Start living by loving who you are.  Start living life by loving where you are.  Be content and show appreciation and gratitude for all the many blessings that are present in your life.  I love being able to write.  I love my husband, and I love our dog Lucy.  Those three things are the center of my life and I would not trade them for all the money in the world.  Find what makes you happy and never let go of those things.  Trust me, life is supposed to be and adventure, and with each new adventure be sure to show gratitude.  If you will show gratitude the Universe will reward you with other opportunities for gratitude.  It then becomes a win, win situation, and who doesn't like to win in life?

It's up to you what happens next.  Speak words of love, light, and happiness.  If you want joy, sow seeds of joy.  If you want contentment, throw out thoughts of contentment.  You create the world around you, start accepting this universal law, and start living the way you were always intended to live.  If you want change, be that change you are looking for.  It's time to enjoy who and what you are.  If you will focus on you, if you will realize that it's all up to you, then you will be living a blessed life and others will be blessed because of you taking a stand.  Get going now and live like there is no tomorrow.

Live the life you were always intended to live!

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It doesn't really matter how old you are at the moment, it's never too late to live the life you were always intended to live.  We all know that life has a way of changing direction, throwing us a curve, or simply not measuring up to what we thought it was going to be like.  I'm here today to let you know that you can have joy and happiness in all that you do, in all that you are, and in all that you imagine.  It might not seem possible in light of what you may have gone through as a younger person, but all of the past was your teaching ground.  Now is the time to take what you have learned and use it to improve the lives of those around you, and that includes yourself.

When we were just wee little tykes there weren't a lot of things that we worried about.  We were pretty much assured that we were going to be fed when we got hungry.  Our constant crying would see to that.  We would get changed when we peed or pooped our diapers.  We would constantly have older folks oohing and awing over us and telling us what cute little things we were.  Somewhere down the line we forgot what it was like to have that child like faith and we began to let the world dictate to us how we would feel at any given moment.  There in lies where we went wrong.  Not only did we stop living like a child, but we stopped believing like a child and we lost our innocence.  I know we've been told all of our lives that we needed to grow up and start acting our age.  Well I guess the rebel in me is about to come out again, because to be blunt I refuse to act my age and I will never, and I mean never grow up.

My Granddaughter Madison turns one today.  Do you think she is worried about what college she is going to attend?  Do you really think she's worried about what she is going to wear to the High School reunion and what people will think about her?  The only thing Madison has on her mind is what kind of fun and new experiences will she discover today, and when will she be free to just run around the house getting into whatever it is that she wants to get into.  This is the mindset each of us should have every day of our lives, and screw what others think, or what others say.  I absolutely despise when someone has the unmitigated gall to tell me they know what I'm thinking.  No you don't!  Unless you have lived my exact life, done everything the same way that I did, there is no way that you know what I'm thinking or feeling.  Yes I know they are saying this to be kind, but being kind and being stupid are two different things, but I digress.

If the weight of the world has got you down, why not shed the weight of the world and simply walk away from it?  I know some will wonder how to do this, and others will say that it's impossible to just walk away, after all they have responsibilities.  Just because you have responsibilities doesn't mean they have to dictate how you live your life and how you see your life.  I'm telling you that we need to start looking at life through the eyes of that young child.  We need the joy of being a child to be back front and center in our lives.  We need to laugh and have fun like a little kid.  Being all serious and stressed out is never going to bring joy into your life, and a life without joy is really not a life is it?

When's the last time you had a really good day?  A really good day could mean different things to different people, but imagine a day where you weren't worried about the bills, the condition of the car, the amount of work you still had complete with little or no time to complete it in.  Think about a day where you were free to do anything.  Think of a day with zero restrictions.  Think of a day that knew nothing but absolute peace, joy, and happiness in it.  What would you do with a day like this?  What would life be like for you if all you experienced on any given day was peace, joy, and happiness?  Sadly there are so many who can't even imagine a day like this.  Well maybe it's time to realize that peace, joy, and happiness is what you were designed for, what you were designed around, and what you were designed to walk in at all times.  We have let our surroundings, our upbringing, and our own expectations of things to dictate what our future looks like.  I can sit here and think about all the things I don't want in my life, but if I'm focusing on the things I don't want, I'm not focusing on all the things I already have, and the things I should be grateful for having in my life.

Whether you believe it or not, we create our own reality.  If you want to have the life of peace, the life of joy, the life that every single person on your street is envious of, maybe you should start by setting the intention that you shall have all of it.  Let me tell you that there is plenty to go around, as the universe has an endless supply of peace, joy, and happiness.  Why someone would want to be void of these things is beyond me, but it really is there for you in a supply that is unending.  When I lay down to fall asleep each night, and when I get up each morning I think about intention, and that I am part of intention.  I am it, and it is me.  I feel it in my body, my mind, my heart.  Certainly there are moments in my day when I am not focused on intention, but I am quickly reminded that I need to get back to intention.  I do not want for anything because I have it all.  When one is focused on what they don't have, they are incapable of being thankful for all the good things that they do have.  Life is not what you have, life is all about who you are.  You are peace, joy, and happiness.  Living a life void of these things is not really a life, is it?  My good friends it's time we start living the life we were always intended to live, and once you make that determination to do just that, life changes in remarkable ways.

If your life needs a pick-me-up, let me know and I'll give you one.  I love writing, and I love talking about destiny, and why you need to discover yours.  I get to do what I love, and please know that I totally love what I do.  You deserve to have the very same thing in your life.  You were intended to from the beginning of time to know nothing but peace, love, joy, and happiness.  If you are not experiencing all of these, then we need to make some adjustments.  Trust me, when you reach out to the universe for more of these things, they will come in such a fashion that they will overtake you.  Live the life you were intended to live, and share it with others.  Trust me on this, you will never look back and regret a thing.