Self Portrait

What adjectives would you use to describe yourself? "Tall, dark and handsome" aside, who do you think you are? I've always answered that question with the words, sharp, strong, smart, athletic, determined, and forceful, and those adjectives came to play in my need to define myself through achievements in school and in sports.  Words that I never used include vulnerable, weak, scared, confused, or lovable. The last eight months have proven that I am certainly the first four, which was a big shock to the system, let me tell you. But as to the last word, "lovable," I am a bit stuck.

My friends and family have certainly demonstrated through their meals, hugs, cards, CD's, emails and notes that their love is beyond the pale. I don't doubt their integrity or the strength of their emotions, but I've come to find out that I doubt my own lovability. It was never in the catalog I used to describe myself.. I knew I could count on my grades, my times, my job title, even my earnings (for a short while back in the mid-90s). I didn't need the word Lovable in my handbook.

But now I do. Athletic achievements are done, and grades don't matter any more. I don't have a job at present, and so there is a deep doubt at my center that I am worthy of love. Can a person formed mostly of sharp angles and wide emotional swings be considered "cute and cuddly"? Those "c" words I associate with lovable and they are not me. Even when I think of myself as a baby I think of someone screaming away with colic, or dragging her big wheel away from mom and dad saying "I do it." I am going to have to go back to the beginning and re-frame my self concept to see a vulnerable baby and young child who needed - and received - comfort. As a young woman who enjoyed sleeping in her parents' closet because of their nearness. As a mother of three who was gravely ill and cared for by legions of angels. I'm going to have to love myself first before I can truly believe anyone else. If you have a checklist or a training plan for this, please let me know. I might need a little (more) help.