Love – noun: an intense feeling of deep affection.
Somewhere along the way while growing up, I missed the self-love memo.
Instead I picked up the idea that love was something I earned from others by making them happy.
When I was doing what my parents wanted, they loved me more. When I was pretty and funny and easy to be with, my boyfriends loved me more. And when I wasn’t those things, it felt like love was withdrawn.
So I learned how to change my behavior to try and match what I felt would illicit more love from whomever was in front of me. And I learned how to wear different masks to get love from different people.
But then Brooke Castillo blew my mind with the idea that love is a feeling. And feelings are created with our thoughts. Thus, no one else can “give” you love or make you feel loved, because it all starts in your brain.
So I went and peeked in my brain to see what thoughts were there creating love and I found quite the opposite.
Thoughts like:
- He doesn’t care about you.
- If he really knew you he wouldn’t love you.
- You’re so naïve and needy.
- You don’t have anything valuable to offer.
- You’re failing.
- You need to be better than you are.
- Why can’t you handle all of this like everyone else?
- I’m broken.
- Something is wrong with me.
Any of these sound familiar?
For some of us, it really is true that we say things to ourselves in our minds that we would never utter aloud to another human being.
But it’s like our brain thinks, “If I just beat you up enough, you’ll feel motivated to change and be better.“
It doesn’t work that way my friends.
The more negative and self-deprecating our internal dialogue, the more negative emotions we create for ourselves and then end up acting from.
And when the foundation of your thoughts about yourself is, “I’m broken and there’s something wrong with me,” you’re going to feel that in every aspect of your life, from your career to your parenting to your marriage.
We think the solution is to get up and DO more. Go out and be kinder, say nicer things to others, show up more generously, be more “loving.”
But all of that is like trying to share from a glass that’s already empty.
Instead, the answer is found in cleaning out your thoughts about yourself, feeling and processing what you’ve created, and then deciding intentionally what you want to believe and feel about yourself going forward.
This is the work that creates the foundation of a life filled with loving others effortlessly.