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I was just about to turn 26 years old when one of my attempts at self-love (and to be loving to my wife at the time) turned into the biggest disaster of my life.<\/p>\n
What happened was, one day our next door neighbor who was a contractor and home builder) told me that he was going to buy a piece of land not far from us and build a brand new, totally amazing home on the property.<\/p>\n
He was so excited and made it sound so easy that I started getting excited about doing the same thing.<\/p>\n
The longer he and I talked about it, the more it sounded doable.<\/p>\n
To make a really long story short, he (and we) decided to go in together and buy not just the piece of land he was originally going to buy\u2026<\/p>\n
But we would buy the property next to that one as well and he would build two houses instead of just one and we\u2019d continue being neighbors and friends.<\/p>\n
Only then, instead of living in small starter homes, we\u2019d both have really nice, custom made homes up on this hill in the woods with very few neighbors and total privacy.<\/p>\n
Big problem.<\/p>\n
The home our contractor friend was building for us came in way over budget, our old house never sold and my wife became pregnant.<\/p>\n
Plus, our son was born with major (at the time) health problems.<\/p>\n
When it was all said and done\u2013this attempt at self-love by \u201cgoing for my dreams\u201d and building this big house on the hill that we couldn\u2019t truly afford\u2026<\/p>\n
Culminated in what would come to be known by me as my \u201c3 years of hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe someday I\u2019ll share more of the specific details of what happened in the aftermath.<\/p>\n
But for now, let\u2019s just say that by the time this 3 year period was over, I felt totally alone, defeated and abandoned\u2013even by God.<\/p>\n
Looking back at me in my early twenties, I was simply young, dumb and so full of false confidence in myself that I could have been considered arrogant, conceited and cocky.<\/p>\n
I also had almost no self awareness.<\/p>\n
I hadn\u2019t yet figured out the importance of asking myself the \u201cdeeper questions\u201d as I made important decisions about moving forward in my life\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n And slowing down.<\/strong><\/p>\n After my \u201c3 years of hell,\u201d I was no longer cocky, arrogant or conceited.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t have an ounce of real or even false confidence left in me.<\/p>\n Somebody once said that life is what happens while you\u2019re busy making other plans and that\u2019s certainly what happened to me.<\/p>\n Since then, I\u2019ve been on a 30 year journey of learning about self-love.<\/p>\n It hasn\u2019t always been easy but my focus since then has been among other things) about learning to love me and learning self awareness so I know the difference between when I\u2019m truly loving myself and when I\u2019m coming from some wounded place I\u2019m still carrying forward from my past.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve learned that there\u2019s always a reason for everything\u00a0 we do.<\/p>\n Always.<\/p>\n No Exceptions.<\/p>\n Sometimes we\u2019re aware of the reasons and sometimes we\u2019re not.<\/p>\n What I\u2019m finding in my life is that there\u2019s a big difference between doing something to try to put a salve over an old wound so you don\u2019t feel it and call that thing love\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Versus doing something that\u2019s a true act of self-love.<\/strong><\/p>\n These days, it\u2019s the self-awareness piece and how self-aware I am that helps me be more (or less) able to love myself in each and every moment.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found a few questions extremely helpful along the way in my quest for more self-love.<\/p>\n These are (but certainly aren\u2019t limited to) questions like\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWhy am I doing this?\u201d<\/em> <\/strong>and then following up with another similar but different question\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWhy am I really doing this?\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n These two questions are pure gold in allowing more self-love because they help you get to the truth.<\/p>\n And finally, I like to ask myself\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cWhat would having, doing or being THIS give me that I don\u2019t already have?\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Years later when I could finally look back on the 3 years of hell with some objectivity and less shame and answer these questions for myself about the decision to build the big house on the hill\u2026<\/p>\n I can see that my motivations were based on fear\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013Fear that my wife wouldn\u2019t be happy unless I gave her a nice house<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013Fear that unless I went in with my neighbor on this \u201cdeal,\u201d he\u2019d think less of me<\/strong><\/p>\n \u2013Fear that I wouldn\u2019t appear \u201csuccessful\u201d to other people if I didn\u2019t do this<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, I\u2019ve realized that I have no way of knowing if any of those things were true.<\/p>\n What I\u2019ve found is that anything I think I need to be truly happy, content, fulfilled, successful, loved or anything else isn\u2019t true.<\/p>\n Everything I need to be any or all of the things I think will bring me more self-love is an illusion.<\/strong><\/p>\n I am already love.<\/p>\n I was created from love.<\/p>\n I am love.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just that sometimes I forget this.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\nIf you\u2019d like to talk with me about self-love or you have any other question, contact me here\u2026<\/h3>\n