Marrying another person is a big step, it involves courage for the commitment you are agreeing to. It requires a level of vulnerable intimacy, a willingness to be seen by another person in all your wounds as well as all your glory. It requires emotional bravery. This was one of my biggest barriers to opening to love – the universal truth that all we love and cherish we will one day lose. Loss is a natural part of living, but it’s still hard to open that tender heart knowing full well that one day it is going to be painful. Yet with courageous wholehearted bravery, we find a way to open and step forward into that place of shining light of love because the joy is immeasurable.
Now imagine what life might be like if you were able to give this level of love and commitment to yourself.
This is the invitation this February, to offer yourself unconditional love, honour and cherishing, from this day forwards until death.
Sounds interesting, right! Unusual perhaps, as we mostly live in a culture that tells us we are not enough just as we are and must change parts of ourselves in order to be loved. Eitherthrough changing our physical appearance or by hiding our wild magnificent selves in a socially acceptable box of ‘niceness’.
Well today I offer you the key to the box: Throw open the confines of your heart, stop waiting for someone else to love you. Tell yourself that you are loveable. Accept your blemishes along with your powerful inner beauty and let the light shine within your soul for the world to see. Breathe that into your belly and fill your soul. You are loved.
Self-love is not selfish, it is a courageous act that has the power to change the world.
Imagine what might happen to the beauty industry if beauty was recognised as being not skin but soul-deep. Imagine what might happen to our relationships if we were not searching outside for something we’d found within. What a freeing-up of tension and opening-up of compassion to be able to enter into a marriage or relationship already whole. And being fully present to embrace friendship, sexual passion, life partnership from a balanced centre. Imagine seeing happiness shining out of the eyes of your beloved as they knew their worth and you celebrated it with them.
What might your life look like if self-love was at the very heart of each day, if compassionate self-care became a daily ritual and if deep in your being you accepted who you were?
What would change?
How would you feel?
This February I invite you to consider the radical act of self-love to honour the connection and commitment to yourselves. Write some vows and read them out loud to yourself in front of the mirror. Wear your favourite clothes and feed yourself delicious treats. Take a honeymoon, even if it’s just for the afternoon. Write a bucket list of hopes and dreams. This is your life and there is no-one else better in the world to spend it with than yourself. You are beautiful, just as you are.
Save the date: As well as valentines day on the 14th, the 29th of February is the leap year, a once in four year opportunity. when according to popular culture it’s appropriate for women to get down on one knee and ask someone else to marry them. Why not ask yourself. Share your journey #selfmarriagefebruary
art by
Rassouli
Isabelle Bryer
Alisha Lee Jeffers
Welcome to Full Circle 