How can you really love yourself?
For me, this task has taken a good portion of my life. And I have to remind myself everyday that I am worthy of feeling this way and my words have, and even add, value to the world.
A role model for loving yourself
I was born into a family where beauty abounded. My maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, modeled for Vogue Magazine in the roaring 20’s. She was gorgeous to behold. I saw stunning pictures of her as I grew up. I wish I had known her. She was a casualty of a submarine attack in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II, along with her toddler son, Jay.
Yes, I am named after my grandmother. I really wish I had known her. She positively beamed when she looked into a camera lens. In some of her pictures she has an expression like she is privy to some secret that the rest of us have yet to discover. Yet no one in the family hardly ever spoke about her. So I was left to my imaginings. She was special, like a goddess to me, in my childhood and in young womanhood. She remains an icon in my life.
How to achieve inner peace
Yes, Elizabeth has always fascinated me. And I never felt like I could even begin to hold candle to her beauty ~ both inside and out ~ until I realized that I had some interior housekeeping to do. I had to learn that my external beauty truly is a reflection of my perception of myself on the inside. Well, to really achieve this, I had to find a way to stop the war going on inside of me. You know, the one between me and myself where I’m always telling myself that I don’t measure up ~ to other peoples expectations of me, or to my own expectations for myself. I felt full of shame about how I looked and a part of me rebelled at feeling this shame at all. This was quite an internal battle. Sounds like a losing proposition all around. Yep ~ time to call Housekeeping!
Learning the true value of my heritage
I had to learn to accept my body as an expression of The Universe, with all of the seeming imperfections I saw. You know, these imperfections: my nose is a funny shape, my legs are too short, my thighs are too heavy (or even FAT!), my ass is too small or too big(!)…there’s no end to this negative spiral. But these ‘imperfections’ are part of who I am. And after all, who am I to question The Universe? This realization was pretty humbling right there. And I felt as if I had been given a cosmic smack-down to my ego. Good! That was needed!
Gifts from the Universe
I had to spend some serious time discovering and exploring the gifts that The Universe had bestowed upon me, at birth and through my life experiences. My voice found itself at last. And then I discovered the courage to actually use it. I gained confidence in it. No easy task for someone stuck in the role of victimization. But an easier task for someone lost in victimization and, with some soul searching, the help of others, and the help of the Uni-verse, found their way again and moved their way into empowerment.
I found other gifts. And the more I searched for them, the more gifts I found. The old adage ‘what you look for is what you’ll find’ (and other versions of this) rang true. When I was so busy comparing myself to others and some imagined standard that I had fabricated in my mind, I felt shame and I viewed myself in a shameful way. When I finally realized I was a creation of the Universe and here to give my gifts to the world, I became empowered and was able to contribute my value, confident that I actually had value to give.
Maybe I discovered Elizabeth’s secret after all. And I learned how to channel my own inner goddess.
What is your truth? And what are your gifts?
What are the ways you bring yourself into empowerment, especially when you feel like you’ve fallen into the role of victim?
How do you help others when you see that they are in a disempowered place?
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