“How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” – Rupi Kaur

In my week of solitude during my COVID quarantine, I thought about one of the greatest acts of courage we humans take on: loving someone after heartbreak. It’s crazy that we would ever entrust another person with our hearts, fragile, fickle, and a little bat shit crazy. To let someone into your inner depths and the power that comes with that, especially after experiencing any type of loss of love.

And yet, there is something that requires even more courage – to love yourself with such a fierceness, you are entirely comfortable with the pleasure of your own company.

To be in solitude with only your thoughts and way of beings to keep you company, and survive or even celebrate it.

It requires going within and examining all the bits and pieces, even the ones that are a little battered and bruised. The parts you keep hidden in the shadows to deal with another day.

To see it all as beautiful and good and part of the whole you.

Now that, my friends, is some authentic, Marvel-hero-type bravery. And I’m here for it.

[Photo: My first trip to Brian Head, Utah hosted by friends; this was only a few weeks before my season-ending Achilles surgery.]