Hello, lovelies.
If you have not written your letter to a loved one yet, I highly suggest you do so now. Before reading any further.
Because I’m about to reveal the purpose of this, and it will be far more meaningful to you if you write your letter first, and then understand.
Let me start with a quick story:
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been in a position – on several occasions – to offer my unwavering and unconditional support to several people I love and believe in very much. Through it all, the support I gave bordered on incredulity. How could these gorgeous people doubt their ability?
How could they want to stay silent, constricted in their self-made confines, because they were afraid? The delicious real potential sat glimmering on their surface, just waiting to explode. But they stopped. And hid.
Most of all, the love I felt was so pure and genuine … the belief so magnificent, that I cried several times. And then … then I thought …
“Wait. Wouldn’t they say the same of me? Wouldn’t they want ME to live the same way I want them to live?”
and
“If I can love them with this much unbelievable acceptance, why can I not love myself that way?”
and
“I am going to love myself – from now on – with complete acceptance. Unashamed. Unabashed. Unafraid.”
That Letter You Wrote? It Was Mostly For You
Right now would be a great time to pull your letter back out and feel what you felt when you wrote it.
Only feel it about you.
Please give the letter to your loved one, if you’d like. But keep a copy for yourself.
Put it somewhere you will see, or somewhere you can easily access, so you can remember to accept and love yourself – and want the same things for yourself that you would want for someone you love – all the time.
Because here’s the honest truth: Everyone who loves you wants you to shine your own special shine. Everyone who loves you wants you explode your goodness all over the world.
And if they love you like that (and you love them like that) then what is stopping you from being fully … you?
Loving Yourself Isn’t a Crime
I think the idea that if we love ourselves before we love anyone else we’re being selfish has been drilled into us from a billion different sources.
That’s because “love” is a word that’s ALMOST ALWAYS ill-defined.
Love is not selfish. Love is accepting. It’s encouraging. It’s expansive.
And please – dear heaven please – can we all just start to agree that until we love ourselves (with the definition above), we cannot give ourselves fully, honestly, and truly to anyone else. We’re not doing the world a favor by silencing ourselves, or by huddling deep inside out of fear of overstepping.
As long as we proceed forward with radiating love, all is well and good in the world.
Turn inward. Now.
Look again at the note you wrote. Turn it inside. Make it for you, too.
Let that love heal you – and the person it was meant for.
And I want to finish with one of my favorite quotes from Marianne Williamson.
(If nothing else, print this off and read it daily.)
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
Now go.
Be beautiful.
Be loud.
Be unapologetic for who you are.
I will be here for you.
The Heart-Changing Letter Exercise: Part 1
This made me cry. And inspired me. Thank you.
Writing my letter was easy. Re-reading it for myself was hard. Thank you. I’m giving one to the person it was meant for, but I’m giving it to myself as well. And I’m giving it to others. I’m giving it to you. Because you gave it to all of us, and you are the one who deserves it the most. Thank you. <3 <3 <3
I don’t usually comment, but I just want to thank you for such a tremendously touching post. You’ve got me tearing up at work! I am so grateful to have come across your website back in May. From the green smoothie recipe, honey wash and your (and now my) love of coconut oil to your inspirational “food for the soul”– you are helping me delve through my twenties when at times I have felt the most lost (and they claim the teens were going to be the difficult years!). And also for providing me with the tools needed to gain the confidence I tend to lack from time to time. So, thank you, very much for what you do. I hope you know how essential you have become to so many of us. And, I must say, my face has never looked so clear and healthy as a result of the green smoothies and honey face wash!! 🙂
I did in fact write it to me and another person. it was first to me in part and to the other person in the other. I should love me. Why not? If I am to love anyone honestly fully and completely then does this not start with me? If I cannot honestly love and accept myself completely and fully, faults included, then HOW can I love and fully accept someone else???
Being Buddhist we are to extend love, compassion, and loving – kindness to the world, but doesn’t that also have to start within ourselves? If it is not within how can it be given out?
Namaste and thank you,
~nadimoon
Ah, you have made me happy again! So many people don’t want to shine, and it just doesn’t make much sense. You are a balloon, and your inhibitions are just rocks that you’re tied to. Sometimes it makes me feel vain, but I try to untie myself from all of these rocks and float away. Don’t we all want to float away?
This was an exceptional exercise and I thank you for it and all of your talents that you CHOOSE to share! Thank God for you! When I wrote my letter, I additionally visualized myself walking closer and closer to me. Weird . . . yes! Your Part 2 reiterates what I felt.
I have been that person you described. Miserable, could think of nothing I had to offer the world, hopeless. The exercise was easy for me because what I wrote is what I needed to hear when I was at rock bottom.
My letter may have sounded harsh with the questions, but when you love someone to pieces, you must be honest with them in a kind way. In such a sensative state, I realize that I was also sensative to what people told me. Genuineness felt so good, but I felt worse when people told me to “snap out of it”.
I really felt so selfish thinking that I really really wanted to keep the letter for myself, because I knew I needed to hear those things. So, I thank you deeply for this.
If we can fill ourselves up with that much love, it can’t help but spill over onto everyone around us.
When I read your comment yesterday, I was like, “Leave it to Stephanie to figure it all out ahead of time!” It made me smile so bigly. You better keep that letter for yourself, lady. You deserve it.
I had such a sinking feeling after I hit the submit button, like maybe I had hit on the point of the exercise and should have kept my big mouth shut. I wouldn’t blame you if you actually thought “Geez, I wish she’d keep her stinkin’ clairvoyance to herself!”. Part of me also thought that, crazy as it seems, maybe YOU needed that letter too.
Back when I first started reading your blog, I used to jokingly shout at the computer screen, “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!!”… but I stopped doing that a long time ago. I’m glad you’re in there! The world (and my tiny part of it) are better for you being in it and doing what you do. 🙂
Okay, bawling AGAIN. This time a good cathartic cry and sobs of relief. You are good!
Ok this is yet ANOTHER reason why I love you so much!!!!!
I am working on this very thing right now. I have that quote on my fridge (and I don’t like stuff on the fridge so it’s got to be special to get there).
And I’m sort of mentoring a friend and I just read this quote to her last week to encourage her and then after I read it to her, she told me it’s her favorite quote too!
Synchronicity is a beautiful thing 🙂
I had attributed the quote to W.E.B. Du Bois-the first black man to graduate from Harvard, but maybe he was quoting Marianne Williamson. Either way, it’s a great quote and one that a lot of us need to internalize, myself included.
I think a lot of us ladies have been groomed to be docile people pleasers because that makes a man’s world easier, but I am teaching myself to think differently. It’s ok for us to shine and I think we will be happier when we can allow ourselves to reach for our full potential and love ourselves along the way too.
Thank you for another awesome post. So glad to have found you!!!
When I was doing research for a book I was writing for a client a couple of years ago, I had to thoroughly research it out (and make sure she wasn’t just quoting someone else in her book). ‘Cause the quote is often attributed to Nelson Mandela, too. Funny – there are a LOT of quotes attributed to him that he never said. Anywhats, it was hers originally (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marianne_Williamson).
When I think from this “split perception” of what we were raised to believe, and how I feel now, it seems a lot more clear, in terms of what “loving yourself” really means. And how it is neither healthy nor good for our souls to keep all smushed up inside ourselves.
Moms, especially, get it the worst. They’re told that they should sacrifice themselves for their children and families. And I think it’s a noble notion. But I also think that learning how to love/shine expansively on your own LEADS to that selfless sacrifice – because you learn that it’s not sacrifice, it’s an extension of you and a way to shine your light over all your loved ones.
And finally, dude.
Our synchronicity has always been freaking brilliant. Sometimes I think maybe you’re just me (or I’m you) living another life at the same time somewhere else.
Ha!
You’re so right. Moms do get it the worst. My Mom is such a sweet loving person and she has sacrificed herself for all of us my whole life and still does.
She still gets up at 5:30AM to make my Dad a cup of tea before he leaves and goes to work. She doesn’t have to. She does it because she wants to send Dad off with his tea and a kiss. How sweet is that?
Regarding synchronicity, if you also had a chicken and avocado sandwich today for lunch, then we really may be shades of the same person living alternate lives! And you’re going to love the leather bag I just bought me/us…..hehe
Ciao Bella 😉
Thank you. Thank you for this post and thank you for letting your light shine, so that I might have the courage to do the same. May God bless you abundantly.