On Loving Yourself

"Find your capacity to love yourself and then one another" - David Tierney Lerner

I met my good friend David on the side of the road last year while I was walking around Manhattan. We struck up a 45 minute conversation and parted ways. Now, over a year later, he and I spend a significant amount of time with one another--laughing, talking, smiling, living and loving life. The quote featured above was taken directly from the end of one of his brilliant Facebook status updates this past week. And I couldn't thank him any more for it. 

While David was responding to Anderson Cooper's coming out statement, in a beautiful way, in regards to himself--I believe that "finding the capacity to love yourself--and then one another" is such a good lesson that we could all try and participate in learning--no matter what that means for each person and their own insecurities. I know it's a lesson I've been working on for a long time:

My morning is pretty standard.

Wake up. Stretch. Move. Get up. Walk to the bathroom. Look in the mirror.

Look in the mirror.

Look in the mirror.

Look in the mirror.

(Had to make sure that all reflected the way I wanted it to).

If you live alone--or are single--this is likely the first person you see each day.

You are likely the first person you see each day.

Why start off the day looking at someone you don't like?--Someone you don't love?

Too often, we stare in the mirror and pick out all of our "problems." I went through a period of my life where I refused to look in any mirrors-afraid of all the flaws I might find. It wasn't just mirrors though--it was store front windows (because who wants to look into their large reflection with a slim mannequin standing by and critiquing in that mannequin silence). It was car fenders. Heck--it was even shadows. Anything that offered me a return vision of my self was off limits. I went a year, essentially, without seeing ME.

I knew myself too well to know that looking in the mirror would have yielded a self-conscious sadness and eventual self-destruction. I didn't love myself. I didn't love who I was or who I felt people were seeing. It wasn't just my hair--my body--and my face that I didn't love. Somehow the mirrors seemed to reflect a lot of internal conflict that I wasn't ready to understand-- a lot of internal feelings and self-discoveries that I am only NOW starting to explore, discover, and love.

We are only offered a short period of time on this earth and if we spend a lot of that time disliking ourselves, it will be very difficult to find someone who can learn to love us. 

And sometimes we'll find--as my acting teachers would say--that what we really think isn't working about ourselves--is the number one thing that is.

Now.

Go look in the mirror.

Look in the mirror.

Look in the mirror.

Look in the mirror.

Love the person you see.

Love you.

Mi Amore

Translated to English, this means my love. But most people probably know that. Love has this way of being a universal language. So when I say "love" or "amore" I know a lot of people are tuning in. I try to avoid writing about love--I often think I am too young to know what it really is, and that I am too far past my angsty years to write a post that stares it in the face and analyzes it.

.Love is a difficult thing. Even LIKE is a difficult thing.

A friend of mine and I recently tried to analyze our future by the first letters of names of boys we have dated. We laughed trying to figure out which letters would eventually form the U and I in our lives.

But what I am starting to see, learn, and understand about love is that it's not as predictable as the alphabet is--that it's not as easy as A-B-C-D. Love is not the D after C. It is not the Z after Y. It's the confusion of the "next time won't you play with me."

Love is like trying to figure out which way is north, south, east, and west, when you walk out into a dark night with no stars in sight.

Love is an expression--a feeling--a deeper part of us. It is what we say we feel for our family, our friends, and what we search for in a soul mate. It is what we believe the sole purpose of existence has come to be: "To find love--and to be loved in return," (Moulin Rouge). It's not in people, it's in passion. It's in all.

It doesn't have to be romantic, it just has to be sincere.

Sometimes we just need to believe that love is out there. Sometimes we just have to believe that love will find us--all the while we find it. We have to believe that love is out there--that it can be easy--and less difficult--that it can be worth all the waiting. Sometimes we just all need a little love.

And sometimes we will find love...in the crooks, crannies, and nooks of our city streets, boulevards, and subway trains. In the crevice of a booth at our favorite cafe, or in the bottom of a grocery cart we've chosen to use today. Sometimes we need to just have love find us.

I believe in love. With every part of my heart. Do you?

P.S. Check out www.moreloveletters.com if you are in the need for some serious love right now or want to send love to someone. It's kind of like Post Secret--only...Better.