Ep #141: Being Lovable

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, episode 141, Being Lovable.

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, the only podcast that offers a proven process to help you work through your grief, to grow, evolve, and create a future you can truly look forward to. Here’s your host, Master Certified life coach, grief expert, widow, and mom, Krista St. Germain.

Hey, there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. How are things going in your neck of the woods? Things are going pretty good here. We just had a little bit of COVID in the house, and fortunately no major impacts. My daughter got it; we think the boyfriend’s youngest got it. We had her tested, and it came back positive. Other than it being cold, you know, mostly cold symptoms, it wasn’t that bad for her.

She’s got a little bit of a metal taste in her mouth. But it looks like I didn’t get it, and we don’t think anyone else got it. So, thankfully it was mild. Everybody is vaxed and boosted where we can, so glad it was mild. You just never know. You just never know.

So, okay, are you ready to talk about being lovable? I have a question for you before we get too deep in. So, how lovable do you think you are? If you had to give a percentage to how lovable you are, what percentage would you give it? Are you like 50% lovable or 60, 70, 80, or 90, 95, 99, 100? Take a second and answer that question for yourself.

How lovable am I, and be honest, okay? Don’t let your ego come in here, just be honest. You got a number? Okay. I’m guessing, if I could take a poll of everyone listening that most of you wouldn’t have scored yourself as 100% lovable. You would probably tell me that there are times when you don’t behave in ways that are lovable or that you have flaws and imperfections that somehow make you less than 100% lovable.

Maybe sometimes you get cranky or angry, maybe you make mistakes, maybe you aren’t as good as a mom as you want to be, or you don’t think you’re as organized as you could be or maybe you could be more patient or more kind or somehow more virtuous. Or maybe you aren’t living up to your potential yet, or you haven’t figured out how to be happy again since your spouse died. Maybe you think you should be further along in your grief, maybe you don’t think you’re any good at dating, and you’ve been trying, or maybe you’re struggling with decision making or solo parenting, right?

You’re not smart enough. You tell me that if you could change these things, these flaws, aspects of your personality, that you’d be more lovable, and that’s why you gave you less than 100% lovable, would I be correct? Now, if you have done my Mom Goes On coaching or you’re in it, this is my coaching for widowed moms, my hope is that you know what I’m about to say.

My hope is that it’s starting to sink in, and that you’re starting to see yourself differently, and that you’re starting to find the truth in what I believe which is, drum roll please, that you are 100% lovable already. You are 100% worthy. You are wonderful. You are abundant as is, with all of your human flaws, and all of your imperfections. You’re already there.

Think about it this way, when a baby is born, what makes them lovable? Because we would say, most of us, that they are lovable. Do we expect them to do things to be lovable? Do we only consider them worthy of love when they don’t cry? Or do we only decide that they’re lovable when their diapers are clean? Do we only consider them worthy of love when they follow the sleep schedule that we want?

No, we never question the worth of a baby. We never question whether that child is lovable, right? They’re lovable, independent of their behavior. We believe that the child’s worth is already fully established, right? And if they’re fully lovable as is, then what makes them that way? What is that? They didn’t have to earn it. And if someone doesn’t love a baby, it has nothing to do with the baby. Right? The baby’s amazing.

But not everybody chooses to love a baby. Not everybody makes that choice, but that is not a commentary on the baby. That is not to say anything about the baby’s worth. It’s just a sign that the person hasn’t chosen to love the baby. Maybe they don’t want to, maybe they don’t know how, maybe they don’t even know it’s a choice they could make, right? But it has nothing to do with the baby because the baby, even with dirty diapers and screaming and yelling and completely colicky, that baby is 100% lovable.

Regardless of the person’s ability their love ability to love the baby. Agreed? Okay. So, if you’re with me there, then I have another question for you. Thinking back to your own life, when did you start believing that you had to be different in order to be lovable? What age? At what age did a little voice in you, who was trying to keep you safe and probably trying to gain the approval of your parents, your tribe, right, when did that little voice start telling you that you need to be different?

I think at some point this is the message that we get, whether we get it explicitly and it’s told to us by an authority figure or whether it’s just implicitly demonstrated by what we see in others by the messaging that we get from our culture, we all start receiving it. We all start hearing that who we are isn’t enough. You must be better, right?

If you show up as you, you’ll get rejected, be what they want you to be, follow the rules, behave like a lady, get good grades, don’t talk too loudly, don’t take up too much space, don’t hurt anyone’s feelings, don’t make waves, be more productive, be smarter, right? All of those rules that we internalize they gradually had us at some point buy into the lie that we aren’t enough. That aren’t 100% lovable, that we have to be different to be lovable.

I love this quote from Glennon Doyle, in her book Untamed, which if you’ve never read is absolutely worth the read, and she wrote, “The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me.” The only thing that was ever wrong with me was my belief that something was wrong with me. This is it. This is the truth when it comes to being more lovable.

You have been 100% lovable this whole time. What if that’s true? What if you’re 100% lovable right now? And the only probably is that you’re believing a story in your mind that you aren’t, or that you need to change so that you can be more lovable, and you started listening to this podcast because you thought, yeah, I want to be more lovable. No.

What if you’re just like that baby? You are just like that baby. I’m just going to tell you this is what I think, you are just like that baby, 100% worthy of all of the love in the world even when you’re screaming and your diaper’s fully loaded, 100% lovable. And if somebody doesn’t love you it has nothing to do with you. It is a choice that they are making, whether they know it or not.

Some of you are probably worrying that if you start thinking that you’re 100% lovable that you’ll become arrogant, and I just want to tell you that I don’t think that’s true at all. I think that’s a misunderstanding of arrogance. I think arrogance is actually a way of behaving because we feel fearful, and we have something to prove. Arrogance actually comes from lack. Arrogance comes from the worry that we’re not enough, and, so we kind of over correct and we act like we believe in ourselves more than we do.

And this is not at all what I’m talking about. What I’m talking about is you’re fully lovable, I’m fully lovable, we’re all fully lovable, right? If I look around the world and I choose not to love people, it’s not because of them, it’s just a choice that I’m making. So, don’t worry about being arrogant. That’s not what I’m talking about. This is about giving yourself permission to be who you are and not trying to change because changing somehow makes you more lovable. It doesn’t.

So, in summary your worth is not in question. Your lovability is not in question. Do not change because you think it will make you more lovable. You are 100% lovable as is, right now. And if there’s a little voice in your head saying, yeah, well that’s easy for you to say, if you’ve never met me and you knew the real truth of who I am you too would agree that I am not lovable. No, I would not. Okay? I would not.

And I don’t have to know you to say that, because we’re all 100% lovable. So, if you want to change because you want a different experience in life, if you want to change because you’re not living in the way that’s aligned with the life you want to create or the values that you have, if you want to change because you’ve been living the way you’ve been living to try to make other people happy and not you, then, okay, let’s do that.

But if you think you need to change to be more lovable, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If you want to be more loving, I’m all in on that, but don’t do it because you think it will make you a more worthwhile human. Your worth is non-negotiable. You didn’t have to earn it, and you can’t lose it, okay? So, go out there, and be the 100% lovable human that I know you are. Alright? That’s what I have for you this week. Remember, I love you, and you’ve got this. Take care and I’ll see you next week.

If you like what you’ve been hearing on this podcast and want to create a future you can truly get excited about even after the loss of your spouse, I invite you to join my Mom Goes On coaching program. It’s small group coaching just for widowed moms like you. Where I’ll help you figure out what’s holding you back and give you the tools and support you need so you can move forward with confidence. Please, don’t settle for a new normal that’s less than what you deserve. Go to coachingwithkrista.com and click work with me for details and next steps. I can’t wait to meet you.