I have been doing it all wrong

When I was a little girl, perhaps more like a teenager, I started wondering what makes a lady a “good” woman. I must admit that I did not have the best role model at home, and not because my mother wasn’t good enough, she has always been a lovely and beautiful person, but I remember that my parents were not the best couple on earth, which caused confusion in my mind. This confusion led me to numerous questions around how good one can or should be, to become “a good prospect” for a good guy (to then build a happy family, yes yes the fairy tales, blame Disney ha!).

By the age of 14 I thought I had it all figured out… Back then, I created a list of characteristics and a full definition of a proper lady. This list had elements such as:

   •  Good girls never wear provocative clothes

   •  Good girls are religious

   •  Good girls are smart but never smarter than guys

   •  Good girls always say yes

   •  Good girls always smile

   •  Good girls cook well

   •  Good girls work out

   •  And many maaany more …

As I am a very committed person, back then I started acting each and every item of my list… I practiced every single day, until one day I think I became the person of my list. I then met a guy, who latter became my long term boyfriend, who by the way wasn’t the best person on earth, I mean he was there all the time and we were trying to build a true love relationship but it never really worked out. It wasn´t until we broke up that I started asking myself “how did my perfect plan fail?”… I mean I was this “good” person and a “proper lady”… How did I do wrong and chose the wrong guy? For many months I blamed him for being the “bad” one of the story…  I kept thinking like that, until I realized I was failing in this area, over and over again.  I failed so bad that I even “picked” the wrong husband. It was right at that moment of massive screwup that I realized I was doing it all wrong…. I did it wrong all the time, it was me, not them.

It took me 27 years to learn that one cannot pretend to be someone who you are not… That game can only last for so long and the issue with that is that, not only will this ruin your happiness, but you will also make very veeery stupid decisions. How on earth could I choose the person to walk life with, if I did not even know who I truly was? I could not expect to build a family, when I was not capable of building myself. The past is definitely in the past, but it was evident that I needed to change, from scratch.

I have done a deep analysis on my mistakes and also, I have observed successful close friends, to understand the keys to true and endless love (as if there were  many hehe). I truly believe that there are no recipes for true love, but a few things have been appearing consistently between the great benchmarks I have done with my friends and the analysis of my epic massive fails.

In two words: STOP PRETENDING. You need to be yourself, and to make this happen, you need to give yourself time to get to know you. Getting to know yourself is hard, because you realize how massively imperfect you are, but that process of getting to know you will come accompanied with lovely benefits, such as: tolerance, understanding, openness, appreciation and the best of all, it will give you the opportunity to love yourself. And this one is the ONE thing on which I have failed badly. Accepting who I am, without concerns of how it may look like from the outside, has been the key to my present happiness. Hearing my inner voice and driving my life in the way that I always truly dreamed of, has been the reason for my smiles and enthusiasm. For so long I looked out there, for what was always IN me <3. Self love is different from being selfish or egocentric, because when you truly love yourself in a healthy way, the outside counts too…Is from this self love that I have been able to appreciate and value what I have and above all, I have been able to value the people that join me in the walk of life. Is thanks to this self love that I have learned to prioritize the people around me, and not in a bad way but in a very good one… what I mean is that now I know to whom I love the most and I dedicate all my efforts and time to them, because they make me happy and I want to make them happy too. It is from self-love that true peace, balance and mindfulness come from. One must stay truthful to itself and be congruent in life, and good things will get in our way… otherwise, our lives will be just a spiral of mistakes, pretensions and dishonest behaviors.

I have learned that I need to stop trying too hard… Not that I need to give up on love, but I need to know that love cannot be forced. The right person will come along and, because my heart and mind are ready (or will be ready at some point), I will be able to actually SEE that person and that person will honestly and transparently SEE me. Additionally, this self love will allow me to identify the things I have “missed” in the past... I should be able to get to know that person in a much more honest way, and that person should be able to meet me as I am, without sudden “surprises”.

I may be all wrong here, again (it would not surprise me haha) but one thing I know: if you don´t fully love yourself, you can´t honestly love anyone else. In the way that I continue to love who I am, I will continue protecting my heart and to others. In the same extent that I keep valuing and respecting myself, I will value and respect others too.

Surely, I am missing around 3 million keys for pure and endless love, but I am sure this is the base for it.

Fall in love... with yourself. Happiness lies within <3

P.S. This one goes for you Raquel... you are a true inspiration.