Happiness: January 2010 Archives

It's day 15 of my 40 day self-love practice of Taking Care of ME first, and I have to laugh. I often call myself a recovering achievement junkie because I am still recovering. Case in point  is that not only I am on this 40 day practice, but I added another 28-day practice to it, LOL! I rationalize this by saying that I'm not doing the practices to achieve anything, but to actually make myself happier.... so that means that it's not junkie behavior right??

So to get to the point and the AHA that I am just dying to share with you! So my second practice has been to embody the quality of IMPECCABILITY. Which to me takes the quality of meeting your commitments, doing what you said you would do, basically having integrity at a whole new level. There is just something about the word impeccable that doesn't leave any room for wiggle. If you say it will be there by noon, by noon it is. If you say within 24 hours, within 24 hours. No wiggle.

And while that may sound restricting and like it adds way more pressure than one would want to put on themselves, especially during a 40-day take care of myself practice, I have to tell you it's actually been liberating and really eye opening. So much so that...

I think I've found yet another key to why we as women often end up last on the list and find it so hard to take care of ME.

1.  We like to say YES! And we don't like to say no. You get an invitation to dinner. A girlfriend invites you to a drink. Your mother asks you to go shopping. Your boss asks you to take on a new project. A colleague asks for an hour of your time for brainstorming. Most of the time you say YES, right? Unless you are totally stressed out, and then you decline, but only after you've completely explained how overbooked you are. We are givers and that is a great thing, however, most of us give more than we have to give. We give and give until we have nothing left. We say YES when if we were really taking care of ME, the answer would be, "Thank you but no."  Whether we are afraid we won't be liked, we don't want to let the person down, or we feel like we 'should' be able to do it all... our inability to say no costs us a lot on the taking care of ME scale.
   
2. We overpromise and then push ourselves to deliver. I had a male boss once, Joe, a white-haired man 20 years my senior. And Joe had three rules, which he shared with our team via a power point presentation when he became our leader (seriously). I'll save you the entire presentation, but I will share this one rule with you that he lived by ... "Always underpromise and overdeliver." Viola'... because they you will always give them more than they want with less effort from you. And he did it, all the time. Me? When someone asks me when I will get back to them, or when I am giving someone the timeframe in which I can complete something, I fail Joes' advice more often than not. The overpromises fly out of my mouth while my body and intuition are saying, "NO! Make that date later in the week... make that turnaround time 2 days later," my ego mind overrides them and like the achiever it is, picks a date that will make me work harder than anyone but me expects me to.
   

We have the power to take care of ourselves, we're just not using it!
The interesting thing about these two AHA's is that I've known all of it for many years. But I never ever connected them to my ability, or non ability to put taking care of me first, to make taking care of me easier.

But by doing these two practices together, I really got that I have the power to make taking care of me easier or harder by what I commit to. And much of the pressure I put on myself, is just that, pressure I put on myself. When I am making promises to do a favor or complete a task... or am agreeing to a deadline... or making plans with a friend... they don't have crazy expectations of me in most cases, they just want to know what I can feasibly do. And whatever I tell them, they will react to and assume to be true. If they need something more they will ask.
It's not my job to figure out what they need and the overcompensate and overstretch myself to provide it. It is my job to take care of me, and taking care of me means showing up as the person that I want to be in this world and making sure that she is taken care of.

Impeccable and Taking Care of ME, the How to...
I am committed to both, and I invite you to try both too, so that you can feel good about yourself, and feel good inside of yourself. 

1. Like being impeccable. Live by the energy of impeccability and let yourself feel how great it is to be able to do exactly what you say you will do. How good it makes you feel to give to others what they need when they need it... but this time, you are going to do it because you've made a promise to yourself to be impeccable, your actions come from a place of integrity and honoring of yourself. They don't come from the place in you that wants to please someone else, or are afraid of making them mad or having them not like you, or because you think you should be able to accomplish the task. 
2. Check in with yourself before you say YES. If you've made a promise of impeccability you want to set yourself up to be successful and that means taking the time to decide what you really want to commit to -- without fear that what you are asking for is too much. You ask for what you need and let people come back to you. This is about checking in with your intuition before you say Yes to anything. Trying to schedule a meeting or respond to an invitation to a party? Stop. Check in with your intuition. When you force it what is the answer? When you act from the truth which feels easier and more spacious, what is the answer? This is a skill you're going to have to develop over time. The goal is to find the spacious feeling inside your body and act from there. It's funny, but true, that your body always knows, you just need to learn to listen to it. 
3. Make your sustainability a priority.  When committing to something really check in to see how this would affect your energy levels. What do YOU need right now and what will you need then? I declined a dinner invitation to a friends birthday party not because I didnt want to see her but because I needed to recharge me that night, and although I wanted to appear like I could do it all, I needed this time for me. So instead, I went to her house for 3 hours in the afternoon for a more intimate gathering, more relaxed and still got to give her love. I made my sustainability a priority, and guess what, she's still my friend!

Make this the year you take care of YOU!
so that you can reach your dreams, make a difference, be there for those you love and not exhaust yourself in the process.

There are thousands of women taking this challenge this year, and you can join us!

Come to http://www.madlyinlovewithme.com

It's day 11 of my self-love journey of taking care of me first, and my answer of how to do that today is that I need to write this blog, today for me and for every woman and girl out there in the world who doesn't know or have self love or understand why it truly matters.

Last night I was in a room full of 50 women talking about self love, what self love is, what self love isnt, and why self love really is the answer to getting the relationships and love we want in our lives. And it was great! The women who came up to me after the interview told me of their own journeys to love themselves and what an impact it had on them. They told me of the work they were doing in the world to support other women... coaching women through divorces... supporting women in abusive relationships... filming a documentary on the desire for forever love. Work they could only do after they themselves had learned to love more of themselves. Leaving me even clearer that self love is so NOT selfish... that actually loving ourselves allows us to help, inspire and support other women and girls around the world to find safety, peace, and love.

Now I compare that blissful experience to the one I had this morning at my dining room table in which I was really saddened by these very different responses from women I received in the last two days:

• I had reservations in calling you because of all the self love stuff that is on your website. I think self love is pretty hippy dippy.
  
• Is Madly in Love with ME Day about masturbation? 
• Self love isn't for me. 

These answers befuddle me. And they make me sad. What about self love is hippy dippy? Why do we  think  masturbation when we hear the words self love? And masturbation in this case  isn't said in the kind of way that masturbation is good, but in that it is dirty. How can self love not be for you? Would you ever tell your daughter not to love herself? Don't we want our girls to respect and honor themselves so deeply that they take care of themselves... that they only have relationships that respect them... that they love their bodies for exactly what they are...  that they love themselves for who they are... AND don't we want that for ourselves, and for every other woman in our lives, and in the world?

I think we do... I think we do want these things for ourselves and our girls. Do you want these things for yourself? for your daughters, nieces, godchildren, and for the world?

Up until recently, self love has been a word reserved for therapy rooms or spiritual circles, not a topic for conversation at the dinner table or among mothers and daughters, or even girlfriends. Most of us don't know what it means, nor do we know how to find it. And if I am honest, if you had told me 8 years ago when I was still neck deep in trying to find my happiness through my career titles, the size of my house, and getting my fiance to love  and see me, I would have thought the same kinds of things. Self love would have felt totally irrelevant at best and it would have sounded like a dirty word at the worst.

As I sat at my dining room table today, being with the sadness I felt about the fact that women today still have these responses to self love, as  if it is a luxury or nice to have, vs a critical component to true happiness, I remembered, "Oh yes Christine, your life mission, to reclaim the definition of self love for every woman and girl. And today in 2010, that journey has just begun. It's your job to share what you've learned over the last 8 years, and keep learning... going from a woman who thought she loved herself to one who understands that self esteem is not self love... and that without self love, happiness, success, a great relationship, and a career that you love and that loves you back, is not attainable.

If you are not sure whether or not self love is for you... here are 4 reasons why it's critical.
If you have self love... 

1.  You won't have abusive relationships or toxic friendships. Women and girls who love themselves would never stay in a verbally, emotionally or physically abusive relationship. 1 in 3 girls will be in an abusive relationship by the time she is 20, 80% will go back. Women who love themselves know they don't need the love of another to survive, so if they find themselves in these situations, they leave. Women who love themselves don't stay friends with people who drain their energy or that are not supportive. When a woman really loves herself she doesn't attract 'negative' people into her life any longer.
2. You won't beat yourself up for everything you're not. Women who love themselves never compare themselves to other women. They don't judge themselves harshly. And they don't focus on what they should have done but didn't do. They are able to accept the person that she is right now and love that person, not for what she gets done it a day, or for what she accomplishes but just because of who she is.
   
3. You'll be able to take care of yourself, as well as everyone else, without exhausting yourself to do it. Women who love themselves believe and trust that if they take care of their bodies, their health and their needs first, that they will be able to do everything that needs to get done in a day to take care of their jobs, families, communities and responsibilities. And they don't feel guilty for doing it. Women who love themselves do not take on the burden of everyone elses life or problems, and they don't try to control everything around them. They are not martyrs or victims to their busy lives. They refuse to be busy. And they refuse to let themselves become exhausted. They are able to create a harmony in their life that make their life run for them, not them run through their lives.
   
4. You'll take care of your body because you realize that it's what allows you to do what you love, not because you need tight buttocks. Women who love themselves understand that their bodies are like temples on loan, structures that need to be adored and taken care of, vs. shifted and shaped for appearances sake. She exercises, eats well and cares about her health not because she needs to lose 10 lbs, have flat abs or keep up with the looks of younger women. She does these things because she loves her body so much she wants to take care of it... the weight loss and the youth are the outcomes, not the drivers. Self Love is the source. It's a big mental shift that women who love themselves understand, and women who drive or abuse themselves and their bodies without compassion don't.

Those are only 4 of many many more reasons why self love isn't a luxury, a dirty word or something that's 'not for you.' If you truly want to help women and girls around the world, love yourself first. If you want to raise daughters who make great choices, love yourself first. If you want to be happy in this lifetime before you die, love yourself. If you want to experience great love, love yourself first. And if you need help doing it, join me and other women who know the power of self love at www.madlyinlovewithme.com

You don't have to do it alone.