She Lets Herself Be Loved

We were standing in line at a local taco shop to grab some nachos to share. An hour earlier I had asked my daughter if she wanted to go on a date with me and her brunette head bobbed up and down excitedly before she asked if we could get nachos. That’s my girl, she always knows exactly what she wants.

She was dancing around my legs while we were standing in line. I smiled down at her when she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a big hug. Suddenly it struck me how vulnerable her entire posture was when she grinned back up at me.

When she looks up into my eyes, she’s fully open to receive my love. She’s not thinking, “I’m too weird, I’m too thick, I’m too loud, I’m too stinky, I’m too much [of whatever it is] for my mom to love me.”

Nah. She just accepts all of my love for her without any reservations.

We weren’t born thinking that we couldn’t be loved, but as we grow up we start accepting lies instead of love. Conditional lies made us question unconditional love.

Maybe we didn’t have parents that showed us unconditional love. Maybe our other little friends ran away from us. A kid said something mean on the playground. We got laughed at. Someone pulled away from us because our breath stank like alligator poop. Someone didn’t believe us when we said that something had happened to us. An authority figure punished us with shame instead of nurturing us with safe love. Our parents didn’t have time for us.

When we got older, the lies were confirmed every time we got hurt some more… When people didn’t show up for us like we did for them. When a close friend shut us out. When they spread rumors. When someone used us to get further ahead. When the money ran out. When the betrayal was discovered. When nothing seemed to go right and we couldn’t win no matter how hard we tried. When the media said the only love-able people are the beautiful, interesting, smart ones. When it didn’t feel like we have a place to belong here.

So we become convinced that we’re unloveable. We don’t believe we’re actually valuable and that makes us feel like a fraud. We don’t stand up for our worth. We can’t believe that someone could love us just the way we are. We can’t accept that someone else really might want the best for us. We learn not to trust ourselves, cutting ourselves off from giving or receiving love.

My thoughts returned to the present moment when a server asked us what toppings we wanted on our nachos. I let my daughter choose the toppings and rolled my eyes when she didn’t want any lettuce or tomatoes or beans on her nachos. We got our tray of loaded tortilla chips that were smothered in queso with grilled chicken and sat down to share them.

I watched her dig into the gooey stack between us, her mouth moving in anticipation. I wanted to grab her and tell her that she should never believe anyone or anything that makes her feel like she doesn’t matter. That her wins don’t matter. That she doesn’t have a valuable place in the world.

But as I watched her shovel nachos into her mouth with the gumption of a little girl who doesn’t care about proper etiquette, I knew that she would soon have her own path to navigate between lies and the truth of who she is. The best thing I can do is love her well from where I sit and hope it’s enough of a light to help her find her way back from the lies she’ll fall for. There has to be both light and darkness in our journeys, because the one gives contrast to the other. Believing the emptiness of lies will make her aware of how different they are when compared to the completeness of love. One day she will choose between the two. I pray she knows that love always wins.

I asked her, “How do you know that I love you?”

“You take care of me, “ she didn’t miss a beat with her answer.

She knows that she matters to me and that’s all she needs to feel like she belongs. I want her to know that she matters even when she doesn’t get that affirmation from me or someone else. Each of us are, as Brené Brown says, worthy of love and belonging.

“You don’t need to prove your value any more than a mountain needs to prove it’s height. So many of us have spent years trying prove to our families, our bosses, our significant others, but mostly to ourselves that we are valuable. Whether it was a competition lost, a crime committed against you, or a trail of expectations set against you, somewhere along the way your value became a thing to be questioned instead of a thing that simply is.” ⠀

“If I could choose, this truth would come today from a known face staring right back at you: You. are. valuable. The moment the smallest part of you came into existence, your immeasurable value was set in stone. It is not a thing that can be changed, no more than a mountain cannot change what it is.”
— Unknown Source

Don’t believe anything or anyone that tries to deceive you with the thought that you’re unlovable. Dare to choose love right now and embrace your value.

Your soul was born from love and love is what it wants. Give yourself the love you need to to get up again, to be seen, to say no, to say yes, to be wild, to be messy, to think for yourself, to flourish.

Be a shining light kind of love for someone else today and let them know that you see them and value them right where they are. You matter. They matter.

Love is what we all want. Now let yourself be loved.