Cover of Mother And Child
Do you love you?
Do you love the who you are?
Do you tell yourself “I love you.”
Do you have a specific routine of telling yourself you love her? or him?
How often?
And how do you do it?
Do you hug your knees to your chest and rock yourself?
Do you look into the mirror and stare at your eyes directly and adore and love yourself by telling yourself out loud?
Do you close your eyes and get really still and insist on how much you love yourself?
Are you reading this feeling awkward in any way like you could never be that ‘into’ you?
What if loving ourselves and practicing doing so isn’t being ‘into’ us so much as feeding us?
What if loving ourselves is the very basic most essential way to mommy ourselves and daddy ourselves?
What if loving ourselves is so essential and so basic to our very being that everything in the world would make us avoid doing so or think it absolutely ridiculous, selfish, or just flat out dumb?
What if we practiced it anyway?
I know right? That’s a lotta questions.
I’m flat out convinced we need to love ourselves and we need to embrace the doing so.
And we need to help one another tell ourselves it’s okay to do so.
We need to help one another hug ourselves and adore the who we are.
We need to love ourselves…
and the way that feels the most practical hands on way for me to do this is through what I call “mommying me”
I relate to the phrase mommy.
I had an awesome one in my early childhood.
She was tender, gentle, caring, patient.
She stroked my hair when she brushed it.
She caressed me with tender hugs and kisses often and much.
When I was scared she didn’t just say “get the hell over it.”
She listened to me and let me outpour.
And nothing was ever too ridiculous to her.
She’d listen with as much compassion as anyone could have.
And after hearing me sob, and sometimes sobbing with me, maybe a friend at school had called me names, maybe I’d fallen out of a tree I’d been climbing, whatever the ‘owie” in my heart on on my body, there was my mommy comforting me.
For the right now, the whole point is learning how to mommy ourselves.
We dont do this hardly enough, if at all.
We aren’t taught to do this.
We beat ourselves up way too much and yet the very thing that could allow ourselves moments of breathing room and moment to problem solve and figure out a solution in the midst of heart or body pain is just this: putting ourselves in that role of a tender gentle warm and caring mommy who comforts and calms and helps us know we’re gonna be okay and that something will work out.
Saying “I love you” to ourselves is one of the ways I make a daily practice of mommying me.
Will you try it? and just see if it makes you act a tad more gentler to yourself?
In the moment you are about to criticize yourself, could you try saying “Hey, I really do love you” first? If so, I’d value hearing from you….how that works for you.
And I’d value hearing from you if you already do this regularly.
And if you wanna understand more about how to “Mommy me” do be in touch. I’d value helping you understand this proactive way to love ourselves more genuinely.
Thanks for giving this some thought…
Til soon,Tre ~