Lately with all of the major changes, positive changes happening in our world, I have been struck over and over again with a deep sense of love for the people who have been willing to speak their truth. They stand up in front of colleagues, peers, enemies and speak their truth with courage, commitment and deep love for their message.  Sometimes, I am moved to deep tears of JOY and  other times, I marvel at their courage and lately I have been filled with tears of gratitude that I have moved to a place in my consciousness that I also can stand and speak my truth.

This has not always been the case; not at all. When I was a very little girl, I was so shy, I could barely talk in early elementary school. Later in Junior High and High School and even undergraduate school, I learned to talk by being fully present to the other. That is, I was not talking about myself, EVER!, but I was able to appear to be communicating by listening, reflecting and responding. This went on, as I said for years, and most people who communicated with me, thought we were best friends. After all, when we got together, they always felt listened to in love and thus felt loved.  I did not know any other way.

Then when I went to ministerial school, things began to change. First, there were a couple of people who did not want to talk only about themselves.  They wanted to know about me. This was really frightening at first but these couple of friends stuck with me and I slowly realized that I was being dishonest in not ever sharing of myself.

I also had to learn to speak in public. After all, giving Sunday messages are a big part of being a minister. Though this was again, so frightening that I thought of quitting ministerial school many times.  Though this blog is not about getting over this fear, I will say that what did it for me was willing to sound or look stupid and also to do deep level growth and healing.

This deep level growth and healing is the topic of this blog and the next five blogs. The best way to truly grow on a deep and interpersonal level is to learn to love ourselves. I believe that the people that I referred to in paragraph one that speak their truth are ones who have learned to love themselves.

The problem is that most leaders in the personal growth movement tell us that we just need to Love ourselves.  However, they do not say HOW to do this.  If we did not learn to love ourselves, it is hard to just do it.

And I am writing this blog and the next four blogs to teach you how to learn to love yourself.

First of all, the way that parents teach their child that they are loved is by meeting their needs.  So, to the degree that your parents were able to meet your needs, to that degree you grew up loving yourself.  Some parents are really good at this and some may be good in meeting some of the child’s needs but not all of them and some parents are so wounded by their own childhood that if they did not do some healing in this area, they will not be able to teach their child that they are lovable.

So, here is a simple formula for learning to love yourself:

1. Know what your needs are

2. Know how to meet them

3. Take the action you identified in number two.

Tomorrow’s blog will help you identify 5 areas of needs that you can begin to focus in and soon, very soon, you will be on your path of loving yourself.

By the way, the sad thing is that if you did not feel unconditionally loved by your parents, you will never, ever feel unconditionally loved by anyone but:        (tune in tomorrow for the answer)