I love my girlfriends. No doubt about it!

I love my husband and my pets (and obviously love any opportunity to show them off in cute photos!). I love my family, my friends, my country, my street and my great neighbors. I love Chicago and London, Paris and visiting our friends in MN, CO, PA and IN. I love Mexican food, fabulous shoes, American’s Funniest Home Videos, and the way my cat sits in front of the vent in the winter to stay warm. (I also love hearing what makes my girlfriends smile like this wonderful post from girlfriend Sugar Jones.) Thoughtful gifts from friends, Twitter and book club with girlfriends – more things to love and to make life more connected and fun. But what about me? How’s that relationship? Where is the love there?

I’m excited to have CHRISTINE ARYLO as my lead here. Christine is the self-love guru. She’s actually ‘written the book on it’ – called Choosing ME before WE (“Every woman’s guide to life and love”). She shared her girlfriend advice for self love in this guest blog for Girlfriendology, has a Self-Luv-apalooza event (see more info below) coming up and will talk about self-love on Friday, February 12th at 2:00pm EST on our BlogTalkRadio show.

But what about my self love? If I promote, aka: ‘preach,’ something – shouldn’t I practice it too?

Last summer I got a new hairdo. I never thought of straightening my hair but liked the look so made the commitment to this new time-consuming ritual. (I’m a low maintenance girl who likes to be ready to go in five minutes.) Shown here is my photo the day it was cut – maybe the last day it looked this good since the stylist did it!

Just like struggling with this new look, I struggle with my other ‘new’ (actually ‘old’) look. I’ve long been in denial of the wrinkles that are sneaking onto my face. I’ve highlighted over the gray hairs and I try to justify my body condition as the result of endless hours at the computer and not on the treadmill or my physical age. And I’m completely in denial of my actual age. (My husband once cracked up when I told a police officer my real age!)

At a recent party an older woman and I shared a conversation that somehow turned to aging. Being older than me, I couldn’t play off my own insecurities with ageism – she wouldn’t go along with it! She convinced me that she was proud of how she’d aged and actually all the things she does to take care of herself at her age to soften nature’s blow. She even shared with me the perfect lotions and make-up for women to somewhat reverse aging. It was an interesting and actually enlightening conversation of one woman teaching another what she’d learned and she shared some great girlfriend advice.

There not much I love about aging – except for one thing. I’m old enough to have experiences, to have learned lessons (hopefully) and to have created a few decades of wonderful memories with friends. I am more passionate about what makes me happy and a lot less tolerant of the things that don’t (like working in an office or having to drive in the snow when I just want to sit inside and work on Girlfriendology). I know my goal (or my ‘red rubber ball‘ as was talked about at Blissdom, a euphemism for ultimate dream in life) is to inspire women and to encourage female friendship. I long to challenge women to support each other and see past any demographic differences to be friends and cheerleaders for each other.

So, straight hair or not, gray or highlighted, wrinkles and gravity-impacted bodies, I do love the enthusiasm that I have, the lessons I’ve learned and how I’m old enough to have found my passion. I love my friends and how we go through life together – and how many of them are more family than family. I love that I cry over mushy things or stupid little sweet emails about rescued whales or dogs and elephants who become friends. I love that I feel deeply and passionately and appreciate silly things like baby squirrels that scamper on the roof outside my window or the joy of seeing crocus pop up after winter. The hair, the wrinkles, the less-than-fit body – I’m okay with. I know life is much more about the way we treat people and the joy that we try to bring others.

Thanks Christine for generating the conversations we’re having with ourselves and other women on what it means to have ’self-love.’ Thanks for making us examine ourselves and possible the attitude that we pass down to our daughters and other women. In a world where too many women are abused, where girls grow up without self-confidence and deal with the issues and relationships that can impact, and where we don’t even accept each other – it’s a valuable topic to explore – both within and with our community.

What are your thoughts on Self-Love? Share! And check out these articles and info on Christine:

Girlfriend advice (from Christine) on self-love

What’s self-love got to do with it?

The self-love contest – write your own self-love manifesto

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Info on SELF-LUV-APALOOZA:

Tags: Christine Arylo, Family, Friends, loving yourself, pets, self love

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 5:28 pm and is filed under Be a Better Friend, Girlfriend Advice and Reviews, Health and Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.