The personal Mantra that carries me through my toughest times
As you may have noticed, my site recently had a makeover. My new tagline, Love Your Way Through has been my personal mantra for a long time. For you to truly understand what it means I need to share the story of how it came to me.
When I was a new mother I was home alone for long hours, caring for my daughter. As an introvert, I craved time to myself to refuel, but it rarely happened. I had little social support. I was afraid all the time, and filled with self-doubt and sadness. I was physically hungry and depleted; questioning everything. I felt like I was literally living submerged in deep and murky waters, without many internal resources to help me come up for air.
Every day I struggled to get out of bed, to dress myself and my daughter. Every day I fought through boredom and anxiety just to make meals and go to the grocery store. Every day I fought hard to play with my child and take her to music classes. Every day I pushed through the murkiness to reconnect with myself on my yoga mat. And to reconnect with my husband at the dinner table. I was tired of fighting.
One morning the sun was rising, I was lying in bed, alone again, and I heard my daughter cry in the next room. My body felt like a ton of bricks. I felt completely defeated, utterly unable to get out of bed to change another diaper. With a sense of total collapse, I thought: “I can’t fight my way through this any more”.
Yet, from somewhere deeper than deep, a response arose
Love Your Way Through
Instead of fighting through life. LOVE through life.
That moment was a profound shift. I wiped tears from my eyes, and got out of bed, not to fight through another day, but to deeply love myself through another day. I put on clean clothes and dressed my daughter with renewed energy. I contacted friends, and admitted I was struggling. My friends lovingly supported me. “You can do it! Whatever it is, you can do it!” they said.
And I knew I could. Not by fighting to pretend to be perfect. But by loving myself in my struggle, and loving my daughter through it too.
Even just writing the story brings tears to my eyes. When I look back on my early years as a mother, I remember a lot of joy, but I also know it was weighted with the fear, sadness, and anxiety I described above. The moment when Love your way through came to me, it created a profound shift in my life. Instead of using fighting, struggling, or force to get through my life - I learned I could use Love as the starting point.
Through the years, life has been teaching me what it means to Love your way through. What I believe is that to love yourself deeply means to love every part of yourself. That means you bring Love to the really hard parts of yourself. It means not ignoring your shadow side (those things that you don’t like about yourself) or pretending everything is ok when it isn’t.
Love your way through means diving IN to the places that feel horrible and loving yourself anyway. It means moving through a hard experience from a place of your heart rather than from resistance or ego. Love your way through means giving yourself what you need when you need it, from an inner stance of Love rather than fear.
Love your Way Through is my personal mantra and I do my best to live it. Sometimes I’m better at it than others. But to me it is real. It has meaning and value. It is a paradigm shift on how I approach life and my role within it. I share it because, after almost a decade of quietly living it, I am ready to step even more fully into it in my own life.
I share it with you because if you’ve read this far surely you understand the power of Love. I hope you will use these words to empower yourself and your life. I hope they give you hope and encouragement to bring more Love to yourself and others. Because the world needs the force of Love now more than ever.
Now, I wanna hear from you: Do you have a personal mantra? Please share it in the comments below.
Are you ready to learn how to Love Your Way Through your own life? Click here to use the contact forms on this site to set up a coaching call or yoga session with me. I’d love to help you, because we both know the world needs more Love!
Note: I realize that I probably had post-partum depression and could’ve used real support during my daughter’s early years. When I had my second child I made sure to have that support in place. If you are in the middle of feeling the way I describe above I recommend finding some help. I am happy to be a resource for you and to connect you to others.