What Does Love Look Like?

Today is the day that millions of people celebrate love!  The retail industry is projecting that they will earn billions of dollars on today as men and women hurry to purchase roses, candy, flowers, jewelry, dinners and all sorts of gifts to bestow upon their beloved. 

Yet, there are millions of women who will feel left out, depressed and cheated because they are not receiving any roses at work, or no one is asking them out to dinner. These are the women who will feel that there's something wrong with them because they are not apart of the hoopla.

I can relate to this painful feeling, because when I was a divorce mother of three children, I too wanted so desperately to be apart of love's holiday. But it was when I discovered that the love I so wanted, I hadn't given it to myself.

And so it is with many women I meet today. I've seen and talked to women who have created and manifested businesses that not only generated great lively hoods for them, but has given hundreds  of others lively hoods. Yet, these women still feel bad about themselves.

I've seen women in the caring and healing professions, teachers, ministers, doctors who save lives and life coaches, who help direct people's journey, go home and tell themselves terrible things and feel unworthy and unlovable.

I talk to women and as I look deep within their eyes into their souls and I see so much pain.  They are not aware of their own beauty, their magic, their sparkle, their vitality and their spirit. Let's face it. We all have been these women and for many of us, we still are.

It's in our alone space, or on days like today, we begin to ask the question--"what's wrong with me?"

The answer to that question is not about what's going on outside of you, but what is going within you. Your spirit is just a little tilted...because many of you don't know how to authentically love yourselves.

You create lovely homes for your families, take care of your children, and get up every morning feeling like "I'm not good enough and I'm not lovable." This becomes the root of every imbalance you suffer.

Many women believe that if they can get organized enough or create more balance in their lives -- that this will fix the anxiety that they are feeling. That's because you are under the illusion that something outside of you is going to make you feel whole. But only true authentic self love can do that for you.

It is time that we begin to heal from that injury of self-rejection that was inflicted upon us. It's the injury that all of us encountered somewhere along the way. By someone else who no doubt was also injured. In many cases by someone who has long gone out of our lives.

It's time that you come into a deep appreciation for the wonder, the magnificence of who you are and know that it's not based on what you do, but by virtue of your very existence.

So today is not just about celebrating love for someone else. It really can be also about healing and recovery. It's about taking the your next step towards an act of incredible self love and compassion.

Just as you look into a baby's eyes and see a precious, magnificent work of art...a divine miracle. Today,  I want to encourage you to  look yourself in the mirror and see the same magnificence, divine miracle. Because the miracle didn't change, she just grew up and got a little larger.  The magnificence didn't go away. As you look in the mirror, say to yourself, "I LOVE YOU!" That my sister , is what real love looks like.

And Remember, Live Authentically, Laugh Everyday and Embrace Love as a Lifestyle.

Does It Have to Be Perfect?

I wanted so much for him to love me...my ex-husband, that's who.  I thought he would love me and protect me forever. But he broke my heart into little pieces and I wondered if I would ever heal.

Does that story sound familiar? I think we've all experienced heart break whether we are a fatherless daughter or not. But for most of us fatherless daughters, our heart breaks runs deeper because it comes from a deeper space within us. It's a familiar space. A space that we've held waiting for daddy to someday come and tell us how much he loves us, how much he adores us and how special we really are to him. But for most of us that day will never come and we've tried hard as we could to get that longing and desperate need met through the men we chose to love.

And when that doesn't happen, we are left in a dark, desolate place of despair. "Will I ever find true love?"...becomes our daily mantra. Then for many of us, we thrust ourselves in our careers. We become driven, independent super women. Thinking that we can somehow we can fill that empty space with our houses, cars, designer clothes and bank accounts. Yet, we end up in lots of debt, many of us living above our means and stressed out. Because the feeling of stress and chaos is normal to our subconscious mind, because we haven't done the necessary work to clear those sabotaging thoughts that creates invisible barriers around out lives.

Then one day your beloved walks into your life. "This is it," you tell yourself. It's a romance that should be written in a novel. But  he soon does something that sends you into a tail spin. "Here we go again," you say to yourself. But is it really what you think? 

Because as a fatherless daughter, you are never satisfied. It doesn't matter who it is, if he's not perfect, it will not work. He can do ten things right and one thing wrong and you are ready to jump ship. Because we fatherless daughters can never be satisfied. Ha, ha, I can hear my ex-husband saying the very same words to me. At the time, I thought he was the crazy one when he would say, "I can never please you, you're always complaining about something."  Whew! And when I heard my children say similar things such as "Mom, what did I do now?", I knew I needed to change.

It wasn't until I began to understand that my fatherless daughter syndrome was destroying my life and realize that if  I didn't get a handle on it, I was going to be lonely, broke and unhappy for a long time, that I began to change.

As you read this story, does any of this resonate within you? Many of us think that our failures are our inability to sustain relationships, handle money, loose weight or something else, but if we are to look a little closer, we will see that it's really something deeper!!

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