I was sitting with a new friend who was discussing her current lack of partnership when she said something to the effect of, ‘I need a good fuck’, to which I replied, “then Fuck yourself!”

The words were out of my mouth before I thought about it. Isn’t that how Spirit works?

What I thought that meant at the time was something akin to ‘date yourself’, but it really is so much more.

It’s more like a recipe for un-fucking yourself in all actuality, so to that end you would start backwards. (But really, start wherever you want to, just please start.)

K is Know

The first step is really to KNOW yourself. Rarely do people, especially women, take the time to get to know themselves. We spend a lot of time getting to know friends, co-workers and family but how well do we know ourselves?

How much of who we think we are is in relation to another? When asked to ‘tell me about yourself’ we often fumble for words and then give a laundry list of roles we play.

“I’m a single mother of four, a waitress, an entrepreneur. I have an MBA, PhD….etc.”

But when asked to describe our friends we are more inclined to say something like, “She’s the kindest women I’ve known. She will give you the shirt off her back and the last cookie too. She is a nurturing mother and a generous soul.”

Ask yourself why? Why can’t we describe ourselves the way we would describe our best friends? For one thing, we often don’t know ourselves as well! But we should! WE should be our first best friend! And that can only come from getting to know yourself.

Knowing yourself comes from spending time with yourself in different settings. Where do you feel most comfortable? How do you handle things outside your normal comfort zone? How far can you push yourself?

What makes you uncomfortable? Do you know the difference between something feeling uncomfortable and something feeling unfamiliar? How do you handle the former? Do you trust your intuition enough to live by it?

What makes you cry? Why? What is a skill you wish you had? What step can you take to start developing that skill? What brings you joy?

To Know yourself, you have to explore all the things you’ve been hiding from yourself. Explore all the wounds you’ve covered over. You have to become your own best friend. You have to know who you were, who you’ve become and who you want to be.

To do that will require you to face some hard truths and that will require you to comfort yourself.

C is Comfort

Once you begin to Know yourself you might realize you aren’t who you thought yourself to be. You might realize that some relationships aren’t serving you. You might realize the places you’ve tried to fit into aren’t where you belong. You might realize you need to let some things/people/jobs/habits go. And when you do you’re going to start grieving.

You will need to comfort yourself in this grief. You will need to comfort yourself the way you would comfort your best friend.

What truly comforts you? What makes you feel SAFE, not ‘BETTER’. Feeling ‘better’ is a bandaid. Alcohol might make you feel better in the moment. Drugs might make you feel better in the moment. Food might make you feel better in the moment. Sex might make you feel better in the moment. But what makes you feel SAFE? Safe is the goal. Safe is not about feeling better in the moment, it’s about feeling secure in your life. Safe is where healing begins.

The practice of comforting yourself will be foreign. Replacing unhealthy comfort with healthy comfort will be unfamiliar at first, but persevere. It’s worth it.

Again, look to your friends and ask yourself how you comfort them. Do you have children? What about your partner? How do you comfort them?

Is it holding space so they can express their emotions? Do that for yourself by journalling. Journalling is nothing more than a written conversation between you and your higher self. You’ll be amazed at what insight and relief this simple practice provides. Also, find a therapist that really resonates with you. It’s literally their job to hold space for people to explore and express their emotions.

How else do you comfort others? Buy them a small gift that shows you are thinking of them? Buy yourself something small and thoughtful that brings you joy. Would you plan a getaway trip for a friend? Book yourself a weekend getaway. Don’t make excuses, make plans, You can find a local retreat center and spend less than $200 for room and meals for the whole weekend. Would you hold a friend as they cry? Wrap yourself in a blanket and let it out. Would you take your friend out to dinner? Get dressed up and go to your favorite restaurant or pick a new one. You get the idea.

These are all things you can do for and by yourself. But don’t forget to include spending time with the friends you do have, who also know how to comfort you.

Once you can comfort yourself, then understanding yourself comes next, naturally.

U is Understand

You might think that knowing and understanding are the same, but understanding yourself is different from knowing yourself. You can KNOW something without UNDERSTANDING it.

For instance you might know you are triggered when someone criticizes you, but do you understand WHY it triggers you? Is it their presentation? Or is it your internal dialogue? You might know that you are perpetually late, but do you know why you are perpetually late?

Knowing you have habits, proclivities or preferences isn’t helpful if you don’t also understand why they exist. Understanding is imperative if you ever hope to be successful at changing the things you find do not serve you.

What a gift it is to understand you!! It means treating yourself with kindness instead of criticism. It means no longer judging yourself.

You stop comparing yourself to others and feeling inadequate. You allow your unique qualities to shine in the light of grace and redefine what beautiful really is. It is the pathway to authenticity.

To understand yourself means offering yourself compassion and acceptance.

Once you understand yourself, you’ll be able to forgive yourself.

F is Forgive

Forgiveness is a well discussed topic, with no one quite able to fully explain what forgiveness is or how to do it.

Forgiving yourself is as simple as giving yourself grace for doing the best you could, with the skills you had, the information you were given, and the unaddressed open wounds that were bleeding onto everything.

Forgiving yourself is the most important part of “FUCK Yourself!” Yet, you can’t get there without first knowing, comforting and understanding.

Without forgiving our past self for things our present self perceives as imperfections, mistakes or wrongs we can never grow and evolve. Instead, we would be eternally stuck in a loop of looking back in judgement and regret, always believing that today would be so much better if that yesterday hadn’t happened like that. Eventually we would end up with an entire lifetime that resembles the a funhouse full of mirrors with every image reflecting the back of our head.

One of my favorite Maya Angelou quotes is, “When you know better, you do better.” Your future is created with the vibrations you hold today. Your past vibration cannot be changed, HOWEVER, you can dramatically improve your vibration today, by changing your perspective about yesterday and forgiving yourself for it.

Bless the path that has gotten you here. You. Here. Reading this. Would not be here, now, reading this without every single step you’ve taken. If you had turned left instead of right, you wouldn’t have ended up here but ‘better’. You would’ve ended up somewhere entirely different, with likely just a different regret.

The point of life is not to plot it out and go from point A to point B without turns. No. We are meant to travel on paths so unique in their composition they appear like fingerprints.

Bless the path that brought you here. Bless the pebbles in your shoe, the potholes, the detours, and the trees strewn across the road. Bless the body that got you here. Bless the delays, the missteps and the adventures – even the misadventures! Bless them for being little mosaic pieces of the Masterpiece of you.

Bless each and every little step you took, then turn around and face forward!

Now go F.U.C.K. Yourself…and do it with your head up, shoulders back and a smile on your face!

Make sure to F.U.C.K. your friends too – and send them a link to this post!

(On the off chance you’d like a sweatshirt to go with it, you’ll find it here)