I lived with a sense that something was missing. Although my basic needs were met (food, shelter, clothes, enough money to survive and sit here to write this blog) there was still something inside me that was crying and saying “it’s not enough. Something is missing.”

In my love life, I often blamed my partner for the void.
“I am sad because you are watching more TV than paying attention to me.”
“If only you would do X, Y, Z, then I will feel loved.”

Then I began to realize something I never realized before.
I realized that I blamed the world for the void.

“I don’t have my dream job. That is why I am sad.”
“My partner isn’t this X, Y, Z, way. That is why I feel unloved.”
“My father abandoned me as a child. That is why I have attachment issues.”

I also realized something else.
I realized that I wanted the world to take responsibility for my happiness.
I wanted everyone to do for me so I wouldn’t have to do for myself.

I wanted my job to make me happy because I didn’t want to be happy myself.
I wanted my partner to love me unconditionally so I didn’t have to love myself unconditionally.
I wanted others to be there so I didn’t have to just be with myself.

Once I realized this, I was able to learn the meaning of “Love yourself.”
I realized that if I wanted to be loved, all I needed was to be love.
If I wanted happiness, all I needed was to be happy.
If I wanted company, all I need was to be with myself.

Embodying this new notion has enabled me to be less afraid.
Now, when my partner is watching TV instead of giving me attention, I don’t interpret his behavior as a statement of non-love.
Now, although I still do not have my dream job, I do not interpret that as a sad thing because I haven chosen to BE happy not because I have something or another, but because happiness lives in me. Happiness has become a living entity in me; its being lives in me. If sadness tries to invade my being, I can more easily channel happiness back to me.
When I think of being abandoned and that makes me afraid, I remember that I can still have me.
I can still talk to myself. I know you might think that the idea of talking to yourself is crazy, but it really isn’t. We talk to ourselves all the time. When you have to make a choice between two things and you sit there analyzing which would be best for yourself – who are you analyzing with? Yourself. So you are constantly in communication with your being. I have learned to be my own friend.
It’s such a cool experience. You literally just communicate with yourself and yourself teaches you so many things! Everything I am writing here, I discovered through talking to myself. I have told myself that I needed to improve and to fill the void inside, and my-self responded with a new way of being.

I told myself: “I am.”
“Hm. I am? I am what.”
“I just am. and whatever else I wanna be, I am that too.”
“Oh, wow. I never thought about it that way.”
“I know!! aren’t I cool?”
“Yes. you are if you say you are.”

So I choose to BE HAPPY.
I choose to BE LOVE.
I choose to be COMPANY.
I choose to be WHOLE.
I choose to be  ALL THAT I AM. AS I AM. IF I AM. WHEN I AM.

When I am sad, I no longer tell myself “don’t be sad.”
If I am sad, then f#ck it – I am sad. That’s what I choose to be. And I will be sad for as long as I feel like being sad.

But since being sad doesn’t feel so “good” for me, but being happy does…I choose to be happy more often than sad.

How are you today?
Remember, however you are, you are because you choose to be whatever you are right now.