You’ve Got To Love Yourself

by Mary Gorham Malia

Are you still single? Yeah, still single? Damn. Right. Yeah. I know you are missing love and wanting love and hoping for love. But let me interrupt… first you have got to love yourself.

It’s time to make a shift gay girl. You’ve got to love yourself and stop waiting for love to show up in someone else.

You are already full of it – love that is but you’re not using it.

So let’s talk about how you can use it for you.

It’s time to let love out of the box.

Go ahead and be skeptical but listen, ok?

Most single gay girls are busy looking for love to come in the package of another woman. That’s a problem.

Why is that a problem? Well the poet Rumi says it very well:

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find
all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Keep being skeptical but let those words roll around in your head and heart and let your self hear them.

Would you open up to the idea that you’ve got to love yourself?

If your answer is yes, then do this exercise to step into learning more.

1. Take a two or three deep cleansing breathes.

2. Ask yourself this question: Have I built barriers to love in my life?

You might want to ask this question a few different ways. The thought behind this question is that your beliefs define how you see the world. If you think people are mean, guess what? The people that show up in your world are mean. If you believe that people are fun and generous then guess what shows up in your world? Yes, fun and generous people.

I learned this from Wayne Dwyer. A great story he told of two women he met in one city. They had both moved there a year previous. One women told him that everyone she met was unkind and mean. She also said she had expected it to be that way when she moved there. The other woman he met shared that she had only met very kind and wonderful people and she’d known it would be like that when she moved there.

3. Next make this declaration: “I want to see the barriers I have built inside myself to receiving love. I want to remove them from my life. I want to learn to love myself unconditionally.”

Your beliefs are the bedrock of the barriers and the opportunities you have in life.

Look at the picture again. The two women are naked but covered in words that are negative, limiting, full of judgement. It might come from the outside but most of us are pretty good at absorbing that crap and then calling it our own. Ouch!

Now continue to be skeptical if you must but listen to what’s showing up in your head. What’s going through your mind?

When you look in the mirror in the morning what do you say to yourself? Is it loving, kind and generous? Or mean and stingy?

When you are hanging out with your friends who have great relationships what are you saying in your head? “I’m so lonely I can’t stand it.” Or “This will never happen for me.” Or “No one has ever treated me that good.”

What’s the dialogue running through your head. You are so used to the negative noise in your head most of the time you never pay any real attention to it. That’s a mistake.

Ignoring the negative self-talk in your head doesn’t make it go away. It gives it full reign to take over your head, your heart and your life. Everything heads in the direction of negative self-talk.

Does the idea of loving yourself and searching out your own barriers to self love seem silly? If it does, that’s too bad. I really mean it. Honestly, I don’t want another self-loathing, self-hating girlfriend. Do you?

Can I challenge you to NOT BE someone’s self-loathing girlfriend?

Honestly, I can’t stand hanging out with women (straight or queer) who find a need to tell me how the only good thing about their body is their feet, or hands or butt. I want to scream – “ARE YOU AN IDIOT!” Why are you buying into the shit show that commercialism and our narcissistic society promotes?

But I then remind myself quickly that I’m not here to be anyone’s conscience. My job is to listen to my own noisy and Negative-Nelly thoughts and heal my own wounds.

Being lesbian is one powerful way to sidestep some parts of this trap but we don’t overall. Lesbians are just as bad as any human when it comes to self-hatred. As a community we’ve built up our own social status system and heap hate on ourselves and each other openly and often.

So today I am promoting loving yourself – deeply, strongly and passionately. Enjoying all of who you are. Looking in the mirror and saying to that face – “hell yeah you are fabulous, handsome, beautiful, sexy, amazing, wonderful, brilliant, creative, funny, sweet, strong and the best thing I’ve ever done.”

I want to challenge you to go on a journey of loving yourself. Those things you want to give to the love of your life, have you given then to yourself. The love letters, poetry, the cd full of love songs, pet names and all the things that represent a loving relationship.

Make a decision to pay more attention to the constant stream of negative dialogue running through your head. When you become conscious that you are beating on yourself, actively stop it. Open your mouth and tell yourself you are awesome. Open your mouth and say – “hey I love me and that’s bullshit.” Don’t take it anymore.

Stop being a bully to yourself and start being a lover to yourself.

The biggest secret to finding the love of your life is loving yourself first and without reservation. Get the bully out of you and let love be your fuel.

Remove every internal barrier you have to finding love in yourself. Then watch as Ms. Right finally finds you.

Tell me what you think? Have you already been walking down this path? Does it feel to far away from you? Can you see this for yourself?  Leave a comment below for me. I read them all and reply back.

Warm hugs and much love going your way!

Mary Gorham Malia is a gay girl who’s passed the age of 50, survived menopause, hot flashes and night sweats, raised two children, came out later in life and divorced, grew from being a baby dyke to a lesbian with many dating experiences, has been rescued from cubicle nation and now finds the wisdom of being a bit older as the salvation she always wanted. She’s gone from being lost and late to lesbian life to being a seasoned life traveler who has a commitment to reach out to the lesbian nation and make a difference for lgbt women.

Her business, Gay Girl Dating, LLC, was founded on the belief that lesbian, gay, queer, bi and transgender women can live extraordinary lives when they understand the principles and practices that make life great and put these practices into action in their own lives.

Gay Girl Dating Coach, LLC | PO Box 10924 | Portland, ME 04104 |

| Office: 512-544-7494 |

© 2012 Gay Girl Dating Coach, LLC
Unauthorized duplication or publication of any materials from this site is expressly prohibited.

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