This post has been brewing in me for a while. It’s one of those key parts in my story that I know I want to tell. The journey of learning to say those three little words, to myself. 

I arrived in Koh Phangan safely and it already feels like home. It’s been busy but wonderful since I got here, from a weekend doing a workshop on a Quest for Inner Freedom, a few socials with potential new friends, to now, amid my second journey of Inner Walk. I wrote about my first time doing Inner walk in In the Silence and is the main reason I knew I needed to return to Koh Phangan. 

Every day is a new day, and no two journeys are the same. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting from my second inner walk. Definitely to deepen the practice, hopefully to further surrender and maybe uncover a new blind spot. I do think thought that part of me that was expecting some amazing big BOOM, POW, WOW, mind blown revelation like I had the first time but I guess nothing is ever as impactful in its newness the second time you try it. And the expectation of that, secret or not, can kill its likelihood of happening.  

I was excited to start walking, meet my new silent walking companions and see what the journey would bring. On my first day it was like putting on an old glove. It fit me perfectly, held me and I knew it was mine. I walked for the four hours without stopping, without wanting to and enjoying the delicate bliss. I guess when you come back to something you know you love but have had time apart from, it’s comforting like this. When the time ended I felt euphoric, ALIVE. It’s such a wonderful feeling to rise up in you from the practice of walking back and forth having trained the muscle of settling into presence. I also think its mad that you can feel like you have taken drugs from walking… although come to think of it, I’ve walked myself into a good few hiking highs in my time so I shouldn’t be that surprised! 

Anyway, I felt so alive that I went to a vegan nomad dinner meet up (that this is a thing here really makes me smile) and on the way home fancied a massage as a little treat. As I lay down on the bed I exhaled and all I heard was ‘I love you’. It was so tender, sweet and true. It felt like I’d just told myself I love you from the heart for the very first time and meant it with all my soul. I was all warm and fuzzy thinking about how wonderful it feels to really be looking after myself and taking such good care of myself consistently. I feel like I am really putting myself first and catering to my needs which also relinquishing control of what that needs to look like. I am feeling my way through my needs and listening to the whispers of my body and intuition.  

I know that I have never known myself like this before. I know that all I am feeling is mine and real, my true spirit. I’m here for all of it and I know that I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t stopped drinking. 

I feel that there is no better way of building trust in love through actions. Before the love is the limitless knowing, I think you need to experience it. And so I realise that, in all that I am doing at the moment, not completely consciously, I am turning up and showing myself ‘I love you’. 

Whether you question your intention or not, or see it as some form of weird punishment, I don’t think that anyone chooses to walk back and forth fifteen metres for four hours for four days unless deep down they love themselves. Underneath whatever you may conceive, there has to be love at the root, whatever the lens you perceive it through looks like. No one walks back and forth to spend time with themselves without distractions to learn to allow themselves to connect with themselves and be unless they know they are worth getting to know.  

There is something so beautiful about this as a form of self care and love because it gets you RAW. You cant run or hide away from your mind. Its there whether you walk fast or slow, dance or count your steps. Its there if you sit down for a break or walk continuously. There is no escaping it and it can be intense but you SHOW UP FOR YOURSELF. BOOM. Lol you can tell I’m really passionate about it hey (and maybe still riding my post day three euphoric rush). 

So why is ‘I love you’ so important? 

I few years back I reached a turning point. A turning point that I have endless gratitude for but it was one of the lowest points in my life. I was suffering from burnout and suicidal ideation. Everything that I had spent my life avoiding caught up with me and all that I had learnt to push under the carpet had started to trip me up. It truly saddens me to connect with the memory that there was once a time that I felt so lonely, and that things felt too heavy, that I felt like giving up on life.  

In those darkest moments I realised that no one was coming to save me and even if they tried, the only person who could save me was myself. I needed to start loving and listening to myself. 

There’s a Sarah Blondin meditation called ‘Loving and Listening to Yourself’. In it she says, so tenderly, I love you. And guides you to say it to yourself. I remember walking through the woods, unable to sit down with anxiety, and trying to say I love you to myself. Floods of tears. Hysterical. It was so much for me and broke my heart to feel that I really hadn’t been giving it to myself. I didn’t feel loved and felt so raw trying to connect with it.  

I held those words close to my heart and it became my quest to be able to say them to myself and FEEL them and MEAN them. I’ve written those three words down countless times, said them out loud through tears and as time has gone on they’ve sunk into me that I have started to believe them. When I could finally say them out loud with a smile rather than tears, I was going to get them tattooed across my hand as a constant reminder for me of all I’ve done for myself to get myself here.  

I love you has never slipped out so truly as they did on the massage table the other day though. Without thought, straight from my soul. And I am so, so, so grateful for it. Beyond words. 

I feel like the journey begins here. The journey of love. I remember at school you’d talk down on someone for loving themselves. It’s got negative connotations attached with it, to arrogance or vanity, but we need to let that go. I think it’s similar to how people who drink sometimes judge and don’t want to be around people who don’t. People can find it uncomfortable seeing something that is good for them but don’t feel capable of giving to themselves. Everything is a mirror.  

So, I am here to champion loving oneself because I believe it is the greatest gift we can give to the we world. Through loving ourselves we can truly love others. We can share from wholehearted place of pure unconditional love, because we know what that feels and looks like as we are already giving it to ourselves.  

So here today, I will ask you one thing. Find a mirror and say to yourself ‘I love you’ three times. More if you feel like it. Say it today, say it tomorrow, say it for the rest of your lives. Because Love is a many splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong and all you need is love!