Every Love Song is About You
by Michael Feeley
YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE OUT DRIVING OR WALKING through a store and suddenly, you hear your favorite love song.
Everything stops — You’re pulled right in — Swept away by the melody and the words.
There’s nothing like it! Soooooooo Satisfying – Romantic – Passionate.
It means something BIG and special to you.
I feel that whenever I hear Etta James sing — At Last ——————
What a song! And how she sings it…
At last… my love has come along… my lonely days are over… and life is like a song.
What relief! What an expansive, intimate out-pouring of pure love and intense happiness.
That’s what we all want.
The more I thought about it I realized — every love song is about you and for you.
Love songs open you up to loving yourself and you can take the words and music right to your heart.
The good news? – Your love has come along. It has always been there. It’s YOU!
Where is love?
True love, the real stuff, begins with loving yourself. It’s based on your opinion of yourself. It’s not selfish or narcissistic to put yourself first, it’s essential.
– To love yourself means knowing yourself and accepting who you are.
– It’s believing in and trusting yourself.
– Forgiving yourself for whatever mistakes you may use against your happiness.
– Seeing your past and the future better.
– Being and creating the changes you want for your life.
– Respecting and loving who you are without limits or conditions.
– Shifting disapproval to self-appreciation and self-love.
Often the personal pain and scorn we live with is created by us and stops us from loving ourselves the way we desire.
You’re born with you. You live with yourself and nobody knows you better than you.
Pick any love song and test it
As I worked on this post, my mind flooded with music about love…titles, phrases, composers, singers.
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- Streisand’s — My Funny Valentine
- Whitney Houston’s — The Greatest Love of All
- Billie Holiday — Our Love Is Here to Stay
- Celine Dion – Because You Loved Me
- Beyonce – Smash Into You
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Right now — listen to your favorite love song. Just sit down and really listen. Don’t do anything else. Let the words and music get into you. See what it does to you all over and when you’re done get some answers.
– Why do you love it?
– What does it say about love?
– How does it apply to you?
– How will you use it to love yourself?
Get really intimate with yourself
One of my favorite songs is, The Nearness of You by Hoagy Carmichael and Ned Washington.
The Streisand version from her Simply Streisand album knocks me out. Especially the gentle, sexy trumpet solo at the end. And, I love these words in particular —
…when you’re in my arms and I feel you so close to me…all my wildest dreams come true.
It’s a very intimate song and when it’s just me…Michael to Michael…the utter nearness of being with myself; my thoughts and feelings, going after my dreams and seeing them come true, I’m perfectly content and in love.
It takes time and work to discover who you are; to dig deep and locate your authentic center.
Trust me — You’re there…perfectly intact. Whole. Waiting to get reacquainted with you.
Go ahead. Take the risk and be brave. Step right into yourself; weed through everything…the self-doubt, inaccuracies, pleasures, judgments, memories and see the gorgeous truth about your self.
You’re entirely there. There is nothing missing in you. Nothing wrong with you. You have all the capabilities and possibilities to accept and love yourself. It’s up to you to see it, believe it and live it.
Your relationship with yourself — how you see and think about yourself, treat yourself, care for and love yourself — is the most important thing in the world, whether you have someone you love in your life or not. It includes all of you — mind, body and soul.
You have the obligation and right to love yourself. Your self deserves it and expects it.
If you don’t love and respect yourself how will you ever be able to allow anyone else to love you…
or for that matter…how will you ever be able to love another, truly?
Have an affair
I’m talking about having a sincere, deep, life-long love affair with yourself. Get to know and like who you are. Have a crush on yourself. Become infatuated. Take yourself out on a romantic date and fall head over heels in love with yourself.
Why not?
Sing your favorite love song to yourself or…write out the lyrics and send them to yourself,
‘…From your greatest admirer with all my love’.
Loving yourself doesn’t depend on whether you have someone else loving you. It‘s based first on the love you have inside for who you really are.
When you look at yourself — face to face in a mirror – it’s only you. That’s where true love begins…with just you… and deep, clear, honest eyes.
If you like yourself, like your thoughts and actions you’re in the heart of love.
It doesn’t matter what other people think. Your self-esteem and self-worth come first from you and they’re vital for self-love to succeed.
Know your value. Honor it and never do anything to make less of it.
When you do the work to know who you are and to love yourself…even with questions, uncertainty and changes you want to make in yourself, then you’re open to love and the beautiful possibility and experience of being loved by someone else.
Love yourself without conditions
It’s not — ‘I’ll love me when I’m 50 lbs. thinner or I’ll love me when I have someone special in my life or I’d love me if I were prettier or richer or more successful.’ That’s partial self-love. Bits and pieces. Conditions.
I’m talkin’ full throttle, don’t hold back, heartfelt self-love.
Find out where you’re not in love with yourself and start changing it. Study your thoughts and actions. The choices you make. Everything you do either brings you closer to loving yourself or takes you away.
Don’t be a harsh, personal critic. No vanity stops allowed. Be abundantly kind to yourself. Find the truth, get the facts and build your self-loving feelings.
— Why are you unique?
– What do you love about yourself?
– Why are you worthy of love?
– How will another person benefit from your love?
– What are your gifts, assets, talents?
– What are your proudest of in your entire life?
When you can say – this is who I am – being aware of your potential and living up to it, you’re loving yourself.
Get comfortable in your own skin
How can you accept yourself right now? Be exact about who you are without compromise and with love.
You’re a human being – a mixture of imperfect and perfect. A blend of success and failure, happiness and pain, fears and hopes. You’re a magnificent work of humanity — in process, incomplete, unfinished, living life the best you can.
A true state of mind and heart creates genuine self-love.
Build a mindset that says – ‘This is who I am and I’m good enough! I’m worth it! All of me!’
Read these words out loud — say them to yourself and see — how are they about you?
I’ve got you under my skin…
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me.
So deep in my heart, you’re really a part of me.
For I’ve got you under my skin.
There’s acceptance and profound connection in this Cole Porter song . He’s saying — get comfortable in your own skin. When you love yourself inside out, to your depths, with all your heart, you realize that the skin you’re in is good enough, has been and always will be.
Do it again — speak these next words with love to yourself and watch what happens. This is you to you.
I’m gonna love you like nobody’s loved you come rain or come shine…
Happy together or unhappy together and won’t it be fine?
Days maybe cloudy or sunny
We’re in or we’re out of the money
But I’ll love you always, I’m with you rain or shine.
Song writers Harold Arlen and Jonny Mercer understood. Do you feel their conviction? No matter what – good or bad – rich or poor – sunny or not — you’re with yourself always — loving yourself under any circumstances. That’s the real commitment. Genuine self-love.
Encore – How are the following words meant for just you, with love from you to yourself?
Because you loved me
You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn’t speak…
You saw the best there was in me…
I’m everything I am
Because you loved me.
This song by Diane Warren, sung by Celine Dion, tells you how to love yourself. Be all you can be. Be for your strengths and cherish the best there is in you. That’s pure and honest self love.
Love songs are torch songs for a reason
Love songs light the way for true self-love. They ignite your feelings like a flame, set you on fire and expose the deep, personal, inexplicable, unrequited, passionate feelings of love burning and aching in your heart.
Cole Porter’s, Night and Day is one of those classics. The words and music reach out to you and emphatically say – any time and all the time… night and day…near or far…you are the one.
What wonder, certainty, gratification and love.
And these beautiful words –
…let me spend my life making love to you…day and night, night and day.
That’s the lesson for us all – spend your life loving yourself.
Night and day, you are the one
Only you beneath the moon or under the sun
Whether near to me or far
It’s no matter, darling, where you are
I think of you day and night.
Night and day, why is it so
That this longing for you follows where I go?
In the roaring traffic boom
In the silence of my lonely room
I think of you day and night.
Night and day, under the hide of me
There’s an oh, such a hungry yearning, burning inside of me
And its torment won’t be through
Till you let me spend my life making love to you
Day and night, night and day.
You were born to love yourself
Set an intention to love yourself and make it a bonfire!
Live it every day. Working, grocery shopping, eating out, in your sleep.
Let people see how much you love yourself. Show your confidence and self respect. Live your beliefs.
Self-love isn’t something bad. It’s the most natural, attractive, powerful, irresistible, human thing in the world. And…it makes you beautiful.
That’s quite remarkable and pretty romantic…Don’t you think?
Thanks – Michael
