Christmas Gift

“I think the most important thing in life is self-love, because if you don’t have self-love, and respect for everything about your own body, your own soul, your own capsule, then how can you have an authentic relationship with anyone else?” ~ Shailene Woodley

Here it is Christmas time again. As I get older it comes faster every year. Of course, each Christmas, my focus turns to what gifts to give family and friends. This year, I’ve been thinking not just about physical gifts, but about the intangible gifts we give all throughout the year. And the biggest gift we can give is love.

Over the years I’ve learned that to give love, I must first learn to love myself, no easy task, but so worth it. Recently, I watched a few YouTube videos by a woman named Marisa Peer, a therapist who says that to become happy, all we really need to do is to tell ourselves over and over again that we are enough, that we are worthy, that we love ourselves. When we do that we change the negative self-talk that runs in our heads on a constant feed back loop. It seems so simplistic, and maybe even like wishful thinking to do such a thing because we’re so used to making everything hard. And it’s work to turn our attention away from the familiar mind numbing thoughts that we think we can’t control. It takes commitment. We can’t just say these things once and expect to change our thinking. Nope, we have to put post-it notes around the house, we have to remind ourselves over and over again until a new groove is etched into our brains and the old thinking fades away.

I’ve been practicing this new way of thinking this fall, and I have to say I’m feeling better about everything that is happening around me. I’m more open to people and experiences. Here’s an example: My husband and I are now with family in Seattle. Flying is not always a pleasant experience because of all the security hoops we have to jump through. But both Barry and I decided we were going to change our minds about going through security and then sitting for an hour or more waiting for our flight. We decided it was going to go smoothly. Our check-in process was much more pleasant this time around. The TSA agent even joked with us, which made having to go through the process fun. We struck up a conversation with a couple sitting across from us as we waited to board the plane. And even though it was a long day, I felt much less stress this time than on previous trips.

In fact, I’m feeling better about everything in my life. So, this year and for the months to come, I’m going to follow Marisa’s advice and give myself the gift of self-love so I can spread more of it around and hopefully effect change in a gentle one-on-one kind of way.

If you celebrate Christmas, have a blessed one, and if not I hope your end of the year festivities are full of warmth and love because you are worth it.

Lucinda Sage-Midgorden © 2018

Lucinda is the author of The Space Between Time, an award finalist in the “Fiction: Fantasy” category of the 2017 Best Book Awards. It’s a historical, time-travel, magical realism, novel, and is available in all ebook formats at Smashwords, or you can find the ebook at iBooks or Barnes and Noble. If you prefer a physical copy, you can find a print-on-demand version at Amazon. Stay tuned for news on the audiobook version Lucinda is working on. To join her email list, click here. She will never sell the names on her list.