So I had this moment of pure self-hatred today when I opened an app I hadn’t used in months and found my “resolution list” for 2015–only to see how much of the list I did NOT achieve, how much I’m still hoping to accomplish in 2016, how little true action I took in becoming the person I keep hoping I’ll one day become. God! I could have made the exact same fucking list yesterday!
ALRIGHT ALREADY, DEB!
Then later in the same day I had to ask myself, If I were to define this past year, 2015, in a feeling, would that self-disgust I’d felt earlier be the one? How much time do I spend disappointed in myself and thinking I could have done better? If I were to crawl out of that hole of self-loathing, what would THAT look like?
How about this?
IN 2016, I RESOLVE TO LOVE MYSELF UNCONDITIONALLY. How’s THAT for a resolution? Sure, I want to break the destructive habits, to complete the unfinished projects, to practice more, meditate more, write more. And yeah, I want to take my family on that vacation and fix up my house and live more simply and authentically and healthfully. But most of all? I want to LOVE MYSELF even if I achieve NONE of these things.
Because as much as I struggle with the fact that my own mother is incapable of loving me unconditionally, and as much as I feel relief that I still found it possible, in spite of that lack, to love my own children with the unconditional love I myself so deeply yearned for, I just realized TODAY that what I haven’t been doing–what I NEED to be doing–is to love MYSELF that way.
I AM WORTHY OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND SO THAT IS HOW I’M GOING TO FUCKING LOVE MYSELF. Without condition. Even if I fail to achieve every other goal I set. Even if I make irreversible mistakes. Even if I let myself down. Even if I break my own promises and fail to meet my own expectations. In 2016, I will give myself the love and care and acceptance I give my own children. Unfailing love. Abiding love. Faithful love. Love without exception, without qualification and without condition.
Which is no less than I, or you, or any single one of us, deserve.
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