Love

As I have noted previously, each new year I pick a word instead of making any resolutions. I try to use the word as a backdrop to everything  I do, say or think. Note I said TRY. I fall short quite often. Yet, as each year ends I am amazed at how much the word I chose enhanced my life.

This year I chose LOVE. I try to ask, as Robert Holden, suggests, "What would Love do in this situation?" It has been an amazing process, as Love always answers when I stop to ask and listen for the answer from within.

I have also been practicing more self love. As an extremely busy single mother of teenagers, I sometimes leave my needs out of the equation of daily life. It is a funny thing, self love. Our culture limits it to bubble baths and dark chocolate when it is so much more.

So what does self love look like?

Here is something I have learned so far, just three months in.

* Sometimes self love is having tea with a difficult emotion. You know, the one that keeps returning and you don't want to feel. It doesn't feel so loving . Yet when I let it be and actually feel the crappiness of it all,  it starts to dissipate.

*Self Love means hanging out with that feeling a bit longer to ask "What do you want to teach me?"

*Self love means waiting patiently for the answer.

The answer comes and it is always centered around more love.