A Joyous Perspective on Repairing You: You are your best resource after all....

It's Friday friends and time for another Thought Tale Hour with the Hendersons. In this time when we are so concerned about our lives and the safety of others, it's easy to get caught up in everyone else and forget to take care of ourselves. But how can we do that when we might be disconnected from who we are, or even why we deserve love?

Is a global pandemic a good time to figure out why you need to take better care of you?

It's interesting that we are taught how to love others, how to get love, how to be lovable, but we’re never shown how to actually love ourselves, let alone unconditionally. Why? Because on some level, our society believes that it’s egotistical, narcissistic, or not critical to our survival. But each of those things has little to do with real love. They are all fear-based and a clawing for attention that becomes brutally evident.

Self-love is not self-seeking. In fact, the egotist or narcissist are broken souls who seek to crush others to prove themselves as the best and most significant. Self-love allows you to depend on you, and to find strength from you first. It demonstrates genuine confidence. What I now know is that each time we depend on others or things to give us happiness, approval, to make us feel loved, talented, successful, to receive guarantees, peace, or security, we give a piece of ourselves away. We give what is happening outside of ourselves permission to dictate our level of happiness and self-love.

And this isn't the proper giving of yourself to others...

For me, that evolved into people-pleasing, because I allowed others to be my lifeline to feeling good. Once I stopped giving away my power to everyone, but myself, my relationship with myself changed, and so did my life.  I finally realized that I didn’t need fixing; I just needed to be re-introduced to who I indeed was, and I have always been. Whole and complete. 

When you meet yourself for the first time perhaps, with love, you

allow the process of personal growth to be about fulfillment rather than filling in. You begin to be kinder to yourself, more understanding, compassionate, and supportive of your journey. I know it sounds a little cheesy, but loving yourself doesn’t allow for letting yourself down. And that can be a daily decision for some.

'Self-care' decisions become contracts you make with yourself.

Have a plan as much as we try, our life journey is unpredictable. The only thing you honestly have control over is yourself - your actions, your effort, your words, your ideas, your mistakes. You have the power to decide how you will continue your journey. So you are the best source of advice and design of where that journey will go next.

It’s time to build a sound basis for your goal of caring for yourself from within by tapping into your beauty, confidence, strength, resilience, and all the other good stuff that may be buried away and forgotten so that you don’t lose yourself during life’s ups and downs. And we know that we will face them.

It doesn’t mean we still don’t seek out help and support. But the next time you pick up a self-help book, go to a spiritual healer, hire a life coach, see a counselor, or attend a personal development conference, let these resources be a means to support. Let them help and guide you toward true fulfillment rather than inviting them to be a substitute for your real happiness. Because only you can actually provide that for you. And remember, right now, today:

You are perfect, whole, and complete exactly as you are!






Tonight, Chris and I will be toasting this Friday with a group of friends in an online meeting with a group of good friends. I am making a cocktail I call, "Love, Me" as a reminder of a message of care we should give ourselves every day, whether we are facing a global pandemic or just living life.  It's day 1 of 365 friends. Spend it rediscovering and loving who you are. Cheers, Friends!

Joy's "Love, Me" Cocktail**

2 1/2 oz Beefeater® Gin
1 oz dry sherry
1/2 oz Aperol® orange liqueur
1 oz peach vodka
1 drop apricot brandy

Combine ingredients in a mixing glass, stir and pour into a chilled cocktail glass. Add an orange twist, and serve.


**Even though you are staying home, be responsible.