Loving Ourselves Through the Messy

This is my annual Valentine’s Day newsletter where I normally write about how we all need to love ourselves more, be gentle with ourselves, don’t wait around for someone to buy you chocolate and flowers – do it for yourself etc.… etc.… I had to laugh today while I was reading what I had already written for this newsletter, when an actual can-I-really-be-gentle-with-myself moment came up. So I chucked that version of this newsletter to tell you this story.  

It’s January and I am at a conference in Palm Springs California. It’s the first conference that I have been able to sing at for two years. The conference organizers (Centers for Spiritual Living) have been very upfront about observing all Covid protocols to make it safe to attend. Everyone had to be vaccinated and each attendee would need to take a Covid test that we would do in our hotel room. When we got a negative result, then they would admit you to the conference. If it was positive, you couldn’t attend the conference. I have not taken a Covid test before, so I was nervous about doing it right.

I checked in and got my test, came back to my room and started slowly reading the directions. The type was small, the pictures were fuzzy, and it was just confusing. I looked up the brand name and went to YouTube to see a video – they did have one, but for this specific brand of test it was in Japanese. So, imagine me trying to figure this out in my little room watching the video in Japanese, stopping and starting the video to review the directions, and practically crying in frustration that I could not figure it out! All my “I will be gentle with myself” affirmations went out the window and in its place were: “You are so dumb – everyone else can do this why can’t you? You will probably mess it up and it will read positive – you can’t do anything right!!!” 

Obviously, this was the lesson on gentleness that I needed to learn: to admit that I needed help, that I wasn’t stupid, and to give myself a break! I went back to the check-in desk and very shyly said I couldn’t figure it out. Just then a wonderful woman overheard me and said she would be happy to help. We found a quiet corner, she told me what to do in a loving and gentle way, and within 15 minutes I had my negative test result and I was fine.

My favorite part of this whole thing is that an hour later I was walking by the check-in desk and they had about 20 people all gathered around these tables helping each other do the tests. It seems I was not the only one who couldn’t figure it out.

Why share this story? Maybe Valentine’s Day is all about this – loving ourselves through the messy, not so perfect, critical-of-ourselves parts and truly giving ourselves a break. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and asking for help if we need it, and not being so hard on ourselves. With this in mind, have a happy month of love and flowers and chocolates and whatever else we can do to love ourselves up!