A Jewel in the Clutter

I've been de-cluttering lately just because it feels so good to give away all our "extra stuff".  It used to feel like I was 'breaking up' with my stuff and it was hard to do...

 Click for song about breaking up
Above is a photo copied from the web (not my house), but sometimes it FEELS like I have this much clutter and a strong desire to just let it go.  I give this stuff to friends, family and charities.  It feels quite liberating; like a metaphor for letting go of the old and familiar and making room for the new, unfamiliar and unknown. This has been a fairly non-traumatic way to help myself 'step out of my comfort zone' in other areas of my life.  I don't know how it works, but it does.

Now, about that jewel I found.  It's a journal I was using in late 2008 when I received my second Stage IV diagnosis. This was after 7 years of total remission with the aid of an anti-estrogen drug, Arimidex.  It was quite a shock for me.  I just randomly opened the journal and am going to quote what I wrote at that time...

I've been wondering where the line is between denial and focusing only on what I really do want...NOT focusing on what I don't want.  I need to focus my attention and energy on promoting the health of this body and on promoting my new business (I had just opened my yoga studio). Focus on the good healing work I can do, NOT on things that happened in the past. I forgive myself and others for any hurt, whether intentional or unintentional, I caused to myself or others and any hurt they caused me. I am willing to let go of the patterns in me that created all that pain I have chosen to feel.  I am NOT a victim any longer. I am responsible for myself and everything that happens to me. I am choosing to respond with love and self-forgiveness. I am choosing life, prosperity, abundance, freedom and radiant, perfect health. I choose joy and light in every moment, every thought, word and action. I choose joy, love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness and light. I choose to rise above my circumstances and not allow them to weigh me down. I choose to dis-identify with this body and to understand and KNOW WHO I AM. I am Source energy - I am Spirit - I am Light - I am that - I am all that is.  I open the channel for communication from my soul and spirit to my personality - opening to soul-infusion. I have a soul-infused personality. My personality serves the will of my soul and the Divine. 

I have a mind, but I am not my mind. I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I have a personality, but I am not my personality. My personality is a perfect reflection of who I really am - and who I really want to be. I AM a teacher and a healer. I provide services that no one else can provide - in a way no one else does - I joyfully manifest the power of God.

Here is an excellent book on the topic of de-cluttering...
Click here for Amazon Link

My Experiment with The DENIAL Law of Healing

I've been busy teaching my Love Heals class and truly enjoyed all the interactions with the students.  I am grateful for how much I have learned and grown as a result of teaching this class.

I wanted to tell you about my use of the DENIAL (NO) Law of Healing from Catherine Ponder's book DYNAMIC LAWS OF HEALING.  Of course, it reminds me of a song, 

so click here to listen to one way of SAYING NO

I have had 3 rounds of chemo with Ixempra and had horrific headaches for 7-10 days after each of the first two treatments - significant enough that I was on a prescription painkiller.  Just before my 3rd treatment, I had just read about this law, which seemed strange, as it is very different from affirmations.  But, I decided to perform an experiment on myself.

This is a conscious, emphatic DENIAL. Whenever I felt a headache coming on, I would say out loud "NO NO NO!  IT IS NOT SO!  I DO NOT ACCEPT THIS APPEARANCE.  IT HAS NO POWER. IT IS NOTHING! IT IS NOT REAL!"  

The pain would then disappear IMMEDIATELY.  I was so convinced after the first attempt was successful that I did it several times over the course of about a week and it kept the headache away without the aid of drugs.  I was amazed and oh so happy!  I'm continuing to use it to talk to my can-can. Imagine the power in that.  I also added some affirmations at the end like.  I AM LOVED.  I AM HEALED.

I started a LOVE HEALS page on Facebook.  If you wish to view it, click here.... Love Heals FB Page

Love and hugs for you,

Magnificent Maggie

Bad News, Oncologists & Hope

I had scans (MRI and CT) recently and saw my oncologist on Friday to get the results. I drew this portrait of him a week before the appointment to visualize him delivering good news.  I think it's a good likeness and the one curly hair is what would grow if he didn't shave it off every day. I will do this visualization more often now to prepare for the next set of test results.  It is easy for me to hold this image in my mind and it makes me smile.  This picture is on my bulletin board in the kitchen where I see if often, too.

For your musical entertainment while reading this, click here to listen to a song that has been rolling around in my brain for about two weeks now.  I have asked my dear son-in-law, Jeremy, to learn this song for me.  He has the most beautiful baritone voice!

Anyhow, the news was that I have a new, yet rather small, brain tumor.  It's interesting to note that this is the 3rd June in a row that I've had this same thing happen.  It's in my cerebellum again, which controls coordination and balance (yoga students - that's why my balance has been off lately). Last year, we traveled to Saginaw/Midland for gamma knife radiation.  Click on that to see my post from last year on this topic. Doc said that the tumor in my bronchial tube that has been making me wheeze is only slightly bigger than last scan (less than inch in whatever dimension it was measured).  He said that this is "not really bad news".  I think he meant it could have been a lot worse.

I have spent the last two days processing this information. I have done this a lot of times in the past and perhaps experience makes it a little easier, but I have been doing some grieving while integrating this information and am being gentle with myself in the process. Tears can be healing while allowing the expression of emotion. Many emotional triggers have been activated and, as these always seem to bring gifts/blessings/lessons (g-blessons), I will feel them and deal with them one at a time. This processing time (I sometimes call it hibernation) usually takes a couple of days or even several days before I find the BOTTOM LINE, then I pick myself up and carry on with healing my life.  

What is the  BOTTOM LINE?  

I know that, no matter what happens, I will be okay.  I woke up with this knowing this morning. I also get a break from chemo.  I will always HOPE for remission and I have some very loving, supportive people in my life who hope with me.  I am not denying the scientific fact that oncologists are challenged to see beyond - science and statistics say that I will surely die.  Big surprise - we ALL will surely die, but death is simply a transition back to spirit.  I believe that hope can be a powerful healer and I am doing my best to elicit some hopeful words from my Dr. Science-Oncologist, then to watch the trickle-down effect when I tell people that my doctor is hopeful for me.  I have never yet heard words of hope from this specialty type of doctor (and I have known quite a few of them).  I know they have to be careful of what they say because of legalities and they don't want to give people false hope (but, come on, no hope at all?) They seem to have this head-strong belief that science knows more about illness than sick people who might know something about healing. They seem to overlook the fact that the human being is capable of spontaneous remission - it happens all the time. Science cannot explain it because it's not a scientific, measurable phenomenon. It's proof of the PLACEBO EFFECT - what you believe is going to happen to you is what happens to you. This is more of a mental, emotional and spiritual shift that can often result in a physical shift as well.  

I am living proof of that.  After my first Stage IV diagnosis, I went into total remission for 7 years.  At that time, I believed that my very life depended on my learning to forgive hurts that I had held onto for so very many years. It worked for me until I started holding onto hurts again. And, I believed (eek, the power of belief!) that this behavior was dangerous for my health because it had the possibility of inciting can-can cells in my body once again.  I have finally learned that forgiveness really is about letting go of the pain I have been causing myself. It's truly an act of self-love. And, I have learned so very much about love in the last year...

I wonder if hope is the missing ingredient in the oncologist's bag of tricks.  My doctor already practices medicine with love, for which I am extremely grateful. When I said this to him, he seemed surprised, but said he treats patients as if they were family members - there's the love. And, I love the fact that he doesn't wear a white coat...those things can be so intimidating. If all oncologists are feeling hopeless for their Stage IV patients, and consequently, their patients are also feeling hopeless, and the patient's loving family and friends are also feeling hopeless, is it possible that this is the reason for the high mortality rates? Wouldn't everyone be happier with more hope in the ability of the human spirit to heal her/himself? Or, perhaps a knowing/belief in that BOTTOM LINE?  Supported by the best-known authority (doctor) on the subject?

Great new book that I highly recommend for everyone is MIND OVER MEDICINE: Scientific Proof that You Can Heal Yourself by Lissa Rankin MD. That's the Amazon link. I think this woman's thinking and conclusions are an indicator of a new and better direction for health care - better for doctors and better for patients. 

With great love and appreciation for your presence in my life. 

Mega-Magnificent Maggie McDee

 

Forgiveness-updated 5/31/13

addition on May 31, 2013...
Food for thought. New idea about forgiveness...if love is unconditional, there is NO JUDGMENT; therefore, there is no need for forgiveness.  As an act of loving acceptance, if we can let go of the judgment of the other person (or self), we can break out of the prison on UNforgiveness.

In forgiving, we are choosing to let go of:
* the judgment we have been holding onto
* the pain we have been inflicting on ourselves by feeling angry, hurt and/or victimized

* the indignation, guilt, embarrassment, helplessness, victim-consciousness, shame, or any other feelings  we may have buried under our 'righteous anger'
* holding someone else (or self) responsible for our own pain

IMAGINE:  If we all loved everyone unconditionally (including ourselves), the word forgiveness would not be in our vocabulary. :)

FORGIVENESS has been one of my major life lessons.  I've had this tendency to hold on to my wounds, or hurt feelings.   It seems that each time my can-can "came back", I was working on forgiving someone that was challenging me.  The first, and worst, was my mother.  I had been angry with her for as long as I could remember.

Click to enjoy Linda Ronstadt's HURT SO BAD on youtube

My mother offered me the opportunity to learn how to forgive when forgiveness seemed impossible. What helped me to learn it was actually based on some logical arguments. I was very much into my thinking in those days, 11 years ago. My can-can had metastacized and I was having a serious heart health issue (from chemo 4 years prior - or some other reason.)

* BELIEF: I believed that my lifelong negative feelings for my mother, as well as all the other negative feelings I totally repressed, were the root cause of my can-can

* DO IT FOR MYSELF: I heard someone say that forgiveness is for the benefit of the forgiver. It is a "decision to let go of the pain you are causing yourself" This made total logical sense to me.

* FEAR: (which I thought was a good motivator for me at the time) I feared that NOT forgiving her would surely result in my death - the anger and resentment I held in my heart would fuel the can-can, which was already threatening to kill me.

* KARMA: If she was the perpetrator and I was the victim in this lifetime, then chances were pretty good that our roles were reversed in another lifetime/dimension/reality

* GRATITUDE:  I began to feel grateful for recognizing that this was an opportunity for my spiritual growth

* BELIEF: I had built a brick wall around my heart and this was the key/sledge-hammer to knocking it down. My UNforgiveness had affected every relationship in my life and I had a strong desire to experience/feel unconditional love. Still, the logical approach to a heart issue.

* COMPASSION: I believe that everyone does the best they can possibly do in any given situation.  She made a lot of mistakes and that was still her very best.  She just didn't know any better.  Also, seeing her as a delicate-looking, fragile elderly woman dealing with a difficult life-situation made compassion come more easily.

I went into remission at this point (for 7 years) and thought that I had it all figured out.  On two occasions after that, I got stuck in a place of unforgiveness and more can-can appeared.  Thinking I had already learned this lesson, part of me was mad at the Universe for encountering it (state of UNforgiveness, obsessing over hurt feelings) again.  Forgiveness was still difficult for me, but I've learned to get rid of obsessive thoughts.

I now believe that LOVE is the answer/cure/resolution to everything as it is the very essence of everything.  Self-love is of primary importance and can eliminate the need for forgiveness.  With self-love, we tend to NOT take things personally.  We can look at the other person as a mirror with a message about ourselves.

Click to enjoy LOVE IS THE ANSWER on youtube

A Message To My Body

I know that this body is the vehicle my Self has chosen for her journey through this physical lifetime. Along with my recently realized need to love myself, accepting all of me, including my quirks and imperfections, I had been thinking in terms of my personality-self.  I did not include you, Dear Body, because I have found it very difficult to love you. I was taught as a young person that the body is the "temple of the Holy Spirit", so the Holy Spirit must be my Higher Self - the part of me that is a spark of the Divine. I've already talked to the cells inside of me, now I need to make peace with my body.  That's right, make peace.

While reading, feel free to click here to listen to JOHN LENNON'S GIVE PEACE A CHANCE  on youtube.

Dear Body-of-Mine,

I know that you were under a lot of stress for many years and that you spent lots of your precious energy keeping my emotions in check. You became very skilled as I insisted that you store and repress my emotions and memories, to hide them in your tissues, far away from my awareness so that I could behave well for others, always seeking to make them happy without any concern for myself. 

I did notice that you seemed to have difficulty holding on sometimes when I was experiencing PMS. There must be something about PMS energy that made it very difficult for you to keep holding down those emotions and they sometimes burst out in the form of anger, fury or rage. I have already given you permission to release those emotions and memories and have observed them exiting in many floods of tears over the past year or so. Thank you, dear body, I am feeling much lighter now.

Honestly, I felt betrayed by you, dear body - wounded and bleeding, first a victim of life, then a victim of a dreaded disease - again and again and again and again. I demanded that you endure the pain of countless mutilations, invasions, toxic chemicals, needles, radiation treatments, and medical tests, all mixed together with embarrassment, guilt, sorrow, blame, anger and fear. Part of me felt like I/you somehow deserved to suffer. I believed that:

LIVING MEANS SUFFERING, 

LOVING MEANS SACRIFICING  and

the more you're willing to sacrifice, the more loving you are

I learned as a child that Christian martyrs were the best kind of saints because they were willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause/God they believed in. And, they died the most gruesome deaths - with torture, eaten by lions, stoned, burned, hanged, crucified, tongues and eyes cut out - like a modern day horror movie. I was taught that the willingness to sacrifice one's life was the greatest act of love possible. I sometimes wonder if I am living that belief - die a gruesome death and God will be pleased with me??? yikes!!! I am choosing to let go of any beliefs that are in alignment with that one.

I had forgotten who I really was for many years, but can-can encouraged me to come back to my spirit, come back to God, but I did not come to a place of love for you, my dear body.  I took you for granted.  I expected you to heal, to bounce back, to endure all kinds of torture, to stop causing me so much trouble, to give me a freaking break! I felt like you teased me with two long-term remissions.  I said to you, "So, you DO know how to heal.  You proved it twice already. Why don't you do it NOW? What's WRONG with you, body? Why are you f**king with me?  I hate you - you don't deserve to be loved. Why don't you function perfectly when I don't love and nurture you?" 

I needed someone/someTHING to blame, so I blamed you for my unhappiness, for my can-can. I am a good person, so YOU must be the problem. I wanted you to just go away and leave me alone. What does it mean when you say that to your body? Go away and leave me alone? Is that a death wish? Perhaps it is. Okay, cancel that.  Take it back. I want you to be with me for a very long time, body, so I promise to take better care of you, to treat you with love (gosh, can I really do that?) I don't feel like my body is beautiful or lovable. It is my SLAVE and it will do exactly what I want it to do, because I AM THE BOSS! I AM IN CONTROL! What a ruse I have played on myself! One of the great can-can lessons is that I have NO CONTROL WHATSOEVER.

I know that I asked you, Dear Body, to work overtime and wouldn't let you rest when you were crying out for it. I know you've never felt truly loved, appreciated or cherished; mostly ignored, despised or simply tolerated. I am truly sorry I didn't honor you when you made your simple needs for rest, nutrition, hydration and PEACE known to me. Instead, I filled you with sugar, adrenalin, cortisol, judgment and criticism. I worked you well beyond the state of exhaustion and then insisted that you give even more when you had no more to give.  I wanted to LOOK GOOD in the eyes of others. I just kept pushing and pushing, expecting your top performance. I know you felt like you were alone, as if you weren't part of the larger whole, the oneness of my being - body, mind and spirit. I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I could demonstrate to the world that it's possible to fully recover from this terminal diagnosis by becoming a better person, by letting go of limiting beliefs, by practicing healing techniques, specialized diets, and a whole bunch of complementary therapies.

Dear Body, I never thought to fill you with the energy of Divine Healing Love and I did not appreciate all you have done for me. I have judged you and found you to be weak, ugly and a betrayer.  Because of you, body, I have had to walk around with a mostly-bald head, no eyelashes or eyebrows (but a few chin-whiskers), only one breast, an extremely weak upper-body, no estrogen, poor memory, watery eyes, bad teeth, difficult veins, and difficulty walking in a straight line.

IT'S TIME FOR A CHANGE.....BIG TIME...click this for an appropopriate song on youtube.........TIME FOR A COOL CHANGE

Now I  know that LOVE HEALS.  Love is ALL THAT IS.  LOVE is the answer to every question.  LOVE is the solution to every problem.  And, as the Beatles liked to say, "ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE".  That is one of the great truths of the Universe. The primary "stuff" of the Universe is LOVE, sweet LOVE.

 Click here to play that Beatles Song on Youtube.

I now promise to love you, Dear Body, with all of my heart, with all of my being, with appreciation and gratitude, with gentleness and grace.  With great love for you....and me.

I NEED A BREAK!!!~!

After a period of nearly 2 years of steady chemo treatments, I was starting to feel rather lethargic, where EVERYthing seemed to require way more effort than I wanted to give. I thought that my body was needing a break from chemo, so here's that story... For your entertainment while reading this, click here.  This song reflects how I FEEL while taking a break (of undetermined length) from chemo...

Last month, it was "re-staging" time, which means CT scan (trunk of body) and MRI (brain) to check for "progression".  I sometimes wonder if I could be re-staged to a smaller number, like Zero, but I've been at Stage IV since 2001. I was scheduled for CT on Monday, MRI on Friday, then doctor visit the following Thursday.  Feeling a little test anxiety the morning of my MRI, I called the doctor's office and asked that they tell him that I said, "Please don't make me wait another week to find out the results of my CT scan," so he agreed to see me in between other patients and we had a quick visit that day.  He said that the CT results were good, "which means the chemo is working." I asked, "How do you know it's the chemo and not what I've been doing?"  He replied that there was only one way to do that - to go off of chemo.  I let him know that I was thinking about that, so he had time to think about it before my appointment the following Thursday.

I didn't feel much anxiety about the MRI because, if they find a new brain tumor, the doc calls me the same day...no phone call meant good results. So, at my appointment the following Thursday, I learned that the pelvic tumor had disappeared and all others were stable (no growth), and the bone is showing signs of 'growing back' around the radiated tumor in my spine...best report I've heard in a very long time. This time, the doc said "so the chemo is working ... AND, whatever you're doing".  I then gave my argument for a break and he agreed that I need a break - a hug-deserving moment.  Since we agreed that we probably couldn't agree on the length of the break, we're leaving it as 'undetermined' and I'll go to see him again next week.

So, as Ross screamed to Rachel in a Friends Episode...

WE WERE ON A BREAK!!!!!

If you're wondering what I've been doing, I've been loving my body...another challenge accepted...and another post to explain that....with greatest love for you.....I love you and thank you for loving me.

My Father Died and I Cried

Flashback to Florida in January.  I decided to have a new port (they call it a "Life Port" there) installed because the nurses were having a hard time with my veins, sticking me in the back of my hand several times for each treatment. My veins have a reputation among chemo nurses for being very good at getting out of the way when a needle is pointed at them.  I tried caressing them, massaging them, warming them and even talking to them, but they seem to have a mind of their own.

It was a stressful week.  On Monday, we drove to the surgeon's office only to find out that my appointment had been cancelled and they had called our home phone (in MI) to notify me, then I cried when they said the surgeon would not be available again until the following week (oh no - not ANOTHER treatment with multiple needle-sticks!).  This body has had more than its share of needle-sticks, but an IV needle in the back of the hand tends to evoke a very unpleasant sensation - pain!  One of the ladies there took pity on me and said I could see the OTHER surgeon the following day, so I jumped at the opportunity.

Then, on Tuesday, I saw the surgeon in the morning, then we (George and I) spent the remainder of the day at the hospital, filling out paperwork, being interviewed, recalling my medical history (again), and having a couple of tests, blah, blah, blah.

Exhausted already, on Wednesday, we spent the morning at the hospital, having port-installation surgery - and I joyfully had my LAST needle-stick in the back of my hand (yay!).  I slept in the car on our way back to our FL condo (about 45 minutes), had something to eat, and went to bed.  Later, I got up, sat down, fell asleep, and went back to bed.  I had "the Michael Jackson" drug (propiphol?) for my surgery and heard that they had to give me a second dose cuz I just wouldn't hold still.  I asked if I could take some home with me, but I guess they don't do that.  Then, I couldn't seem to stay awake, so I made up for 16 years of insomnia in one day/night!

Then, on Thursday, I had a chemo treatment and they used my new port.  I apparently have a little neuropathy in my upper chest as I never felt any pain from this surgery or from any needle-sticks in the port itself (yay!).  While driving home from the chemo treatment, George and I were looking forward to resting from our stressful week, and then the phone rang.

It was my dear brother and mother calling to say that Dad had just died.  It was not a surprise.  It was a blessing because I'm sure it was a GREAT relief to him to be out of that body that had imprisoned him for so long.  They say grief comes in waves...I just rode one of those waves.

In my imagination, I immediately saw my Dad as a young man turning cartwheels and jumping for joy because he was feeling so happy to free of that body.  

On Friday, we started our 2-day journey from FL to MI for the funeral.  I talked to Erin, our daughter, who was about to start nursing school.  She decided that she (and her dear husband Jeremy) attending her grandfather's funeral was more important than her first two days of nursing school.  We are very proud of her and grateful for that.  She and Jeremy are, indeed, a blessing to us.  They were there with me when my Dad was in the hospital last August when all I could do was cry when I was with him.

Life in recent years has taught me that it's okay to cry. Crying is a very human thing and I usually feel better afterward.  As a child, I was taught NOT to cry or express emotion of any kind.  I recently read something about how we lost more soldiers in Afghanistan (in a particular time period) to suicide than to enemy fire.  This did not include things like drug overdoses and local violence.  The article also said that emotional detachment is part of the military training.  Think about it - what must you say to our children (young men and women) to get them to believe that killing other people is okay?  I cried for all of the soldiers on our planet who have been "convinced" to believe that their cause is worth killing for and worth dying for.  

And, I cried for my Dad who was only 17 years old (a child) when he went into the army in WWII. He was wounded and earned a Purple Heart when the man who was walking in front of him stepped on a land mine and died. He walked across Germany in the snow and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. 

Much of that training stuck with him for the rest of his life - it helped to form who he was in relation to the world.  Two things I realized about him... He ALWAYS followed the rules without question...I think when he was a young soldier, that is one of the things that kept him alive.  His very life depended on him following orders without question. I spoke to him about this in the last year of his life and he agreed with me. He also learned that emotional detachment "thing". Emotional detachment seemed to be a way of life for many people of that generation - and, consequently, my generation.  

At the funeral, in my imagination, I could see my Dad sitting on the edge of the coffin, a young man, joking around and saying, "What's the big deal?  I'm doing fine!" So, for a moment, I smiled while others were crying.

After the funeral, we returned to Florida and I thought of Dad often when walking on the beach and I would talk to him.  I remembered him telling me to check the direction of the wind before you start walking so you can end your walk with the "wind at your back".  I knew that he was with me when the wind was at my back.  After a couple of weeks, I found myself feeling angry with him for not teaching me about emotional expression. I told him he owed me something for that...he had to walk on the beach with me and talk to me. At the time, I was reading the book THE JOURNEY HOME by Lee Carroll and it helped me to see, very clearly, that Spirit sees things very differently than we humans do.  The day after I finished reading it, I found myself thanking my father for being the perfect father for me...it was exactly what my spirit had signed up for to learn  in this lifetime. Some things I was destined to learn for myself - from my own experience.

This is not at all what I started to write.  I guess I have some catching up to do.  More coming very soon....

Self-Love

I have come to believe that self-love is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to the process of healing. All other love grows from self-love. Without self-love, there is little motivation to heal, there is no impelling Will to Live.

Anita Moorjani (DYING TO BE ME), Louise Hay (YOU CAN HEAL YOUR LIFE), Barbra White (MAGNIFICENT YOU) and others have written about the importance of self-love, especially in healing. It can feel like an impossible task if the idea is foreign to you. I'm speaking from my own experience. I read about it years ago, I included it in presentations and in advising healing clients. I could not stress to them enough the magnitude of the importance of self-love. I facilitated a journaling group for a few years and we would always have the 'homework' of performing at least one act of loving self-care per week (and reporting back to the group). I started talking about (and even journaling about) self-love 16 years ago. I understood from a logical/mental standpoint that self-love was essential to healing; yet, somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought "It's okay. I can skip that part. It's not THAT important."  I could not have been more wrong!!!

I read Anita Moorjani's book the same week I watched Wayne Dyer on Oprah and I remember him saying something like "I am God. We all are. We DESERVE self-love." Those two events made the light bulb finally turn on - I really DO need to love myself if I expect to heal through this cancer experience. 

I started by opening my heart to everyone I knew and everyone I saw. I talked of love to myself in the mirror (I could never do this before). I gave suggestions of self-love in all my guided imagery sessions. Guided imagery, even when I'm the guide, is the best meditation I've ever experienced. I read Barbra White's MAGNIFICENT YOU and that really helped me to understand that it IS possible to love oneself. And, I experienced Self-Acceptance Healing with Barbra White. I had judged myself very harshly and believed that I did not deserve to be loved - by anyone, especially not by myself. I had no idea what love really feels like. LOVE is amazing and magical. LOVE is everyone and everything - and I am part of that. I AM love. We all are love. Wayne Dyer says there is a spark of the Divine in each of us.  We are at once totally Divine and totally human. The Divine part is who we REALLY are.  The human part is pretty much an illusion we have created to exist in the physical dimension.

Click here to experience a wonderful 3-minute experience in feeling loved.  It's a video called "A Love Letter to You From the Universe"  by Gisele Frederich.

Self-love is about allowing myself to be who I really am - the Universe currently expressing itself as a human being (I think Wayne Dyer said that). It's about accepting that I am also human with all my human eccentricities, imperfections and emotions - both negative and positive - with an attitude of compassion and love in place of judgment and criticism. It's about making sure that my needs are fulfilled, that my voice is heard, that I communicate my truth from my heart and that I AM LOVE in thought, word and action.  It's about "giving myself a break" from the stress of always striving for perfection. It's about believing that I am lovable just because I exist (thank you, Anita Moorjani). 

Self-love is about loving myself the way I would love my own child. I remember when my daughter, Erin, was little, and I had said something like, "I will always love you, no matter what."  She asked if I would still love her if she was mean to me.  I said, "yes".  Then, she asked if I would still love her if she was punching me and I again replied in the affirmative. Then she asked if I would still love her if she was stabbing me with a knife, trying to kill me.  After some thought, I realized that the answer was yes. That's what "no matter what" means.  I certainly wouldn't be happy or enjoy it, but I would still love her.  This is the kind of love I am giving to myself and it has totally changed who I am.

Here is a challenge for you: write in your journal (or just make a plan for) what you will do for yourself today or tomorrow that is an act of loving self-care, a demonstration of self-love. It's a great way to start on the path to totally unconditional self-love. With much love from my heart to yours ♥ Mellifluous Mega-Magnificent Maggie McDee ♥