Lonely? Make More Love in your Life

The key to finding love is loving yourself first. See how your self-worth can impact your romantic life and your capacity to love others.

Debbie Ford

For more information on Debbie Ford’s book, Why Good People do Bad Things, click
here.

“I was looking for love in all the wrong places…”

Most of us have related, at one time or another, to the lyrics from this famous country song. They remind us that we all have a longing to find true love; a longing which we sometimes feel powerless to fulfill. These words also perpetuate the myth so prevalent in our culture that love exists somewhere outside of ourselves, and that we’ll never be happy until we find it. This misconception drives us to search everywhere for that special someone who will make us feel important, cared for and adored. But if we trick ourselves into believing that love only exists at our desired destination, we can become caught in an endless cycle of wanting and waiting –all the while denying ourselves the gift of our own love and attention. This is one of the great ironies in life: until we love ourselves, it’s very difficult to attract the love of another. This is because in the privacy of our deepest feelings about ourselves, we are actually sending out messages about whether we deserve love or not.
When we are deeply in love with ourselves, we feel worthy of accepting more love into our lives. By learning how to create an environment of love within our own lives, we begin to draw more love from outside sources. Self-love is the key that opens us up to receive the love we’ve been seeking.

Let’s be clear here: by self-love, I don’t just mean loving yourself on the days when you wake up looking and feeling fantastic. It’s easy to love yourself when everything is going your way – your bank account is full, people around you are treating you well, your career is soaring, your kids are happy, and the house is clean. Genuine self-love means loving yourself, even in the presence of your flaws. It’s having compassion for yourself even when you’re feeling angry, scared, or jealous. It means taking time to be quiet, to withdraw from the clamor and hectic energy of your everyday life, so you can hear the subtle desires and impulses that arise from your own soul.

To read an excerpt of Why Good People do Bad Things, click here.