Hi Friends, 

Today I wanted to share with you the story behind my tag line: Love. Heal. Shine. I came up with it when I was rebranding myself and felt that it embodied my message and the process that I love helping others experience. 

It also speaks to what I have learnt and experienced in my own life along my healing journey.

But what does it mean?

What does it mean to really love ourselves? To heal? And then to shine?

When I talk about loving ourselves, I’m not talking about being self-centered or narcissistic. Nor am I talking about getting pedicures and bubble baths (though they may be great additions to your self-care regime). What I’m talking about is having a deep love and respect for ourselves. A knowing that we are enough just as we are and a desire to then reflect that in the way that we treat ourselves and how we are in the world.

I love this quote from Charlie Chaplin:
“As I began to love myself, I freed myself of anything that is no good for me – food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it as love of oneself.“

Loving yourself is about having compassion for yourself. Not beating yourself up. Getting rid of the “should’s”. It’s about letting go of selflessness and showing up in your life and honouring your own needs. It’s about being self-“ish”.

It’s about being your authentic self and living your truth. 

It’s about showing up and being seen in your relationships. 

Loving yourself is ultimately about self-acceptance, about embracing every part of who you are – the dark and the light.

It’s also about doing what you feel called to do. Doing what your heart desires “just because”.

Most of us weren’t programmed to do what we want to do. Our parents, teachers or bosses told us what we should be doing. Most of us were trained not to care what our heart was calling for but rather how to override that or how to not care about it. To not be swayed by it because there is work to be done and this is what you should be doing instead. And so we live according to the programming to want this “thing” that we never really wanted, making ourselves completely unhappy.

It’s time to stop living life to please others because doing everything that you are suppose to do does not equal happiness. 

When we start to truly love ourselves, by trusting what our hearts are calling for, loving who we are and freeing ourselves of the things that no longer serve us, we begin to truly heal.

We stop people pleasing and we live in sync with our true selves and no longer perpetuate the ‘dis-ease’ within because we are no longer living a lie. We come into alignment with who we really are and live from this place of truth. We heal – physically, mentally and spiritually.

And then we shine. 

We start living the life that we are meant to live. Expressing our unique talents, abilities, gifts that only we can offer the world. We begin to truly live our lives. Not just survive them. 

The light that begins to emanate from within us spills out into the world. 

We show up. 

We feel joy.

We love.
We heal.
We shine. 

xo, M