See Yourself Like Your Kids See You, With Eyes of Love

A few weeks ago I went to the Rodeo for the first time in a really long time and I went twice, back to back. On the second night there I wore these beautiful earrings that my sister gave me for my birthday, so I asked this woman I hardly know, a friend of a friend, to take a picture of me. You couldn't see the earrings in the first picture so she arranged them and took the picture again. What resulted were these two photos of me that sparked so many likes and comments on social media.

Friends commented that I looked beautiful and I commented that it was just the angle or the lighting, etc.. One friend chastised me to accept the compliments, something I always tell people myself, but then don't follow.

At home I told my daughter about this and she held my face in her hands and told me, "That's how you look. You look just like that right now. You look like that all the time."

Part of me thought that it was my daughter just being nice because I'm her mom and she loves me, but then I stopped. I can't think that way. I need to see myself in those same eyes of love.

Yeah, sometimes photos aren't going to be flattering. Sometimes you can see the wrinkles, the bags under my eyes look bigger than usual because maybe I'm tired. Or the angle shows off my double chin more than usual. When we see photos like that of ourselves we tend to think that's how we always look, but it's not true. We have to stop that negative self-talk.

For some reason we've been led to believe that thinking we are beautiful is narcissistic and vain. Women are criticized for posting selfies of themselves.

When I hear that criticism I always go back to the poem "Ode to the Selfie," by Megan Falley and Olivia Gatwood.

The last half of the last stanza is amazing.

"Today millions of girls loved themselves
in the face of a world who tells them not to.
And isn’t that small revolution enough?
And isn’t that the greatest revolution of all?"

Why does it have to be such a revolutionary idea to love ourselves? It shouldn't be.

This week I will make it an exercise to see myself like my kids see me, with eyes of love, and to believe that I am just as beautiful as I look in these photos. Will you join me in thinking the same about yourself?

Creating My Own #WIN

I've been thinking a lot about life lately for a couple of reasons besides you know, just life.

This is LIFE

It all started when my sister came to visit from LA a couple of weeks ago and we finally started going through some boxes I brought to my house THREE YEARS AGO from my dad's house, after we cleaned it out and threw away stuff. My other sister who lives in Houston came over to help us sort through them because she's really good at organizing.

There were two boxes that belonged to our sister who passed away 21 years ago filled with pictures of hers and pictures of her friends. They held her memories book from high school, her wedding album, work ID cards and other mementos. As we sorted through these I got really sad, like I often do when I think of my sister's very short 42 years on this earth. This time though I looked at those two boxes and I told my sisters that it made me so sad to think that our life can end up in two boxes that people have to sort through and that nobody knows what to do with your stuff.

One of the photos we found in the other boxes was my sister's (the organizer) prom picture. We talked about her prom date and other friends. She told us that she had heard that one of our old guy friends was sick. We were surprised and that led to a phone call and she placed it on speaker. He answered and told us he was in the hospital but that he was getting out that day or the next. However, he was going to have to go to an assisted living facility because he didn't have anyone to help take care of him. We looked at one another in shock and dismay.

This all led to me going to visit him first then my sister who was closest to him went to visit him at home and has been helping him ever since. She was once in love with him when she was a teenager but they both married other people, twice... Now here is he is very close to the end of his life on kidney dialysis and she is helping to take care of him. So many missed opportunities in life...

So all of these things make me think about life, my life, my kids' lives... my happiness, my reality, my responsibilities.  A friend gave me the venn diagram above and it's such a great synopsis of life. It's so hard to find that #WIN. When we end up in one of the other spaces we do what we can and we try to be happy and that's where most of us are.

As I'm making changes in my life this year and concentrating on my three words, Clarity, Liberty and Healthy, I am trying to work a lot harder on remembering that people pray for the things that I have. Two brilliant healthy children, I OWN (or paying) a house, I just paid off my small mortgage, I've had a rich full life and I've travelled more places that many people. The list can go on, which is why I know that I have a lot of things to appreciate.

In addition to making changes, like running and eating better, I'm also working on positive thinking and believing more in affirmations and in the power of the universe, without sounding too new agey. I'm practicing gratitude, reviewing my vision boards, visualizing, making affirmations, meditating, making a positive list and other things. These are all part of my clarity and liberty words for the year. I want to create my own #WIN.