There has been a topic that has been swelling in my heart and soul for many many moons now, a thought, an energy, an overwhelming emotion that I feel needs to be attempted, honoured even, by being put pen to paper.
Sometimes, this energy truly, fully, completely overwhelms me. So deeply. So, so deeply it engulfs all of my being and the only way to get through it is to give in to it and allow the emotion to take me on it’s ride.
I’m talking about ….
Love.
L.o.v.e. The four letter word that holds so much meaning it is totally inconceivable, and yet, is so wildly misunderstood. You see, I believe, when we say love, there is a fundamental flaw that occurs, we, as the human race, instantly relate it to 1 of only 2 things. The first, being a romantic kind of love. A marriage, a heartbreak, a crush – the kind of love that keeps you up at night and has you looking at your phone every few moments when you’re waiting on a call back. That has you confused and angry or head over heels and giddy all over. The second, being an endearing kind of love, a love that can only be felt for blood relatives or friends that are family you choose, one that you may primarily have for those closest to you.

But, what if I told you there is a 3rd and 4th kind of love that is so pivotal to our evolution and growth, so fundamental to our humanness, without it we are floating through life lost. In fact, what I truly believe, is that this kind of love, this 3rd and 4ht tier of love, are the missing pieces in the happiness of living. So what kind of love am I talking about?
Love of self .. and;
Love of humanity – love of one another
What if I also told you however, that without love of self, there simply could not be love of humanity. So to have one, one must endeavor to have the other.
You see, Love, to me, is the beginning, it is the middle and it truly, fully, deeply is the end. It is how we begun, and absolutely what we go back to when this physical world is all over.
I sometimes believe there are no words for it, and yet at the same time believe in fact, that it would take every single word in the English dictionary to sum it up entirely.
I believe love is the purpose, the end game, the meaning of it all.
No matter how I look at it though and how deeply I try to understand it, what I always come back to is that we all come from this power.
Power? I hear you echo back sub consciously? Yes, power. There is one thing I know about love deep to my core that nothing and no one can tell me otherwise.
Love, is the one thing that can demand change for the best, heal all pains, find the good and pure in the bad and can unite a nation. And yet so, so much more than that, love can change the world.
Did you feel that?
Change. The. World.
And it would be my honour to let you in on Love’s biggest secret. You can do all of that; demand change for the best, heal all pains, find the good and pure in the bad and unite a nation – but more than that, CHANGE THE WORLD.
By first; loving yourself.
And secondly; loving all of humanity.
If I could truly make you understand these two things alone I truly believe I would have lived in to my purpose. In saying that though, I would never ask of you to understand what I am not trying to learn and grow through myself, and what I believe is that this crazy love thing is something we should all grow through together.
So if I may, it would be an honour to share with you the secrets on how I believe you can profoundly live in to the to these kind of loves yourself.
Be selfish with your love.
I hear the rebuttal already. “Hang on Anna, you just told us to love ourselves and all of humanity and in the same breathe you’re telling us to be selfish with our love, that makes no sense at all.” Well in fact, it makes complete sense.
Why?
Because put in its most simplest of forms; you cannot give from an empty cup.
You cannot give love if you aren’t full of love first.
I have always loved the analogy by Wayne Dyer about the orange. The story goes he took an orange in to one of his lectures he was giving and asked a man in the front row what would come out of the orange if he squeezed it. “Orange juice of course” the man replied. “So apple juice wouldn’t come out of this orange if I squeezed it?” “Of course not! It’s an organge so It’s orange juice inside” the man replied.
To which Dyer replied “Let’s assume that this orange isn’t an orange, but it’s you. And someone squeezes you, puts pressure on you, says something you don’t like, offends you. And out of you comes anger, hatred, bitterness, fear. Why? The answer, as our young friend has told us, is because that’s what’s inside.”
So I ask – what’s inside of you?
People want to go out every day in their lives and love their husbands or wives or children or others or even themselves and yet inside of them is stress, hurt and bitterness. Just understand, that whatever is inside of you will come out.
THAT is what is meant by fill your own cup first. Be selish with your love and give it to yourself first – why? Because then when it comes time to love others, to go out in to the world every day and interact with others, if your so full of love it’s the very thing that will come out in every word, in every smile and in every interaction.
For years and years now I have had a morning ritual that see’s me love myself first through acts of self love. Self love looks different to everyone, but to me it’s about putting my own oxygen mask on first. So I meditate, I go to the gym, I write out my gratitudes and I dry body brush and coconut oil my skin.
So many people want to impact the world in a meaningful and loving way but can’t even impact their OWN world in a meaningful and loving way because their cup is empty.
So what do I mean by selfish and how can you start being more selfish?
Well, to love yourself, fully and completely you have to develop some really strong self love or self care routines, which means focusing on YOU and you alone for parts of your day, everyday. I’m talking non negotiable treat these routines like they’re a million dollars in a suitcase kinda serious. And here is where I want to flip the stereotype on the word selfish as negative and turn it in to a positive one.
Filling your love tank and taking care of yourself through self love routines is the most divine and positive selfish thing you can ever do in this world. Because when you step out to do the work you are meant to do in this world, you have a full tank, or full cup to stay with that analogy to give from.
Taking care of myself first, every single day – fills my cup more than I can say, my cup overflows. As I explained above, I feel energized, I feel calm, I feel happy, I feel loved – by me – which is critical in the love equation. So when I am then going out in the world and having my daily interactions be that in email, text, person, social media – I am pouring love and greatness in to others from a full place.

To be a phenomenal mother, father, sister, brother, daughter, son, friend, auntie, uncle, grandfather, grandmother – whatever titles you are blessed to have in your life, you have to take care of you first, to love yourself first – before you can go and give love to others.
Got it? Are you ready to start being more selfish with your love and fillng your cup first? Good.
Well next I need you to …..
Know you are worthy beyond your wildest imagination.
Self worth. Two words that are talked about more often than not, and feature in every personal development book ever written, and yet…and yet is still such a huge issue so many people deal with today.
I personally think there is still such a lack of self worth because people give up on themselves FAR too easily, its like they start off with the very best of intentions and it’s going great for the first few days or week or maybe even month, then their first challenge happens where they need to step in to their feelings of self worth they’ve been working on – but instead the challenge feels too great so they give up.
YOU are the greatest masterpiece you can ever work on. YOU are also the most important person you can ever get to understand and love.
You cannot love until you love yourself.
You cannot give advice until you take your own advice.
And you cannot tell your children or friends they are worthy if you yourself don’t believe you are worthy. Fact.
There is a quote that I love more than anything and it goes; “I can’t hear what you say because your actions are so loud”.
When I tell my 4 year old niece that she is worthy, and beautiful and deserving of every good thing in this universe – I know she receives that message on a message far deeper than what she can hear. Why? Because I believe it about myself. I would never tell a child something that I don’t believe and live in to myself. Does that strike a nerve with you? Good. If that’s where I have to pull on your chords to get you to understand just how critical this piece is then so be it.
I see people do it all the time. Tell their friends and loved ones how magnificent they are, how beautiful they are or how worthy they are – and then yet shrink away and not be able to receive it if they get told the same things.
No one hears you if your actions aren’t in alignment with what you say.
Try this on for size…next time someone tells you how amazing you are, or loved you are, or how grateful they are for you…. Say THANK YOU. Without saying “oh no no”. Just receive it. Let it sit on you and sink right to your cells.
I adore being able to tell my niece and every beautiful person in my life how worthy they are and how they can be and do and have anything they want in this universe – because I know on a cellular level they believe me because I believe it about myself.
I also want you to try these on for size. I want you to say these out aloud for me – and if you’re at your desk at work, I want you to just mouth them out for now, or read them in your head – but when you get home and then every day for at LEAST a month, I want you to read these out to yourself ALOUD in the mirror – staring YOURSELF straight in the eyes.
I am worthy of love.
I am beautiful in my own uniquely divine way.
I am magnificent in every way.
I am worthy to receive love and give love and be love.
I am the best {mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife}
How does that feel? Does it feel like they’re not true? If you don’t feel anything less than TRUTH when you look yourself in the eye and say these things, you have a lot of work to do on your worthiness, but the good news is I’m here for the long haul to help with that.
When I was at Oprah she said something that I immediately scribbled down, it was; “Happiness is a spiritual discipline”. I resonated so hard because of the word discipline. Happiness TAKES WORK. And some people just aren’t willing to put in the work even though it’s the best work they could ever do in their life.
I truly believe, the same goes for self worth however.
Self worth is a spiritual discipline.
I assure you, back when I needed alcohol for confidence and would take ecstasy at festivals or on weekends I wasn’t waking up like “I am worthy and I am loved” .. quite the opposite. But I recognized that just like anything in life, this self worth thing might take some work, but the work would be worthwhile.
So commit today – that although it will take work, every single day, and although some days you aren’t going to feel like working on your self worth, or you aren’t going to believe a word you say to yourself, and although you may want to quit on yourself 100000 times – that you won’t.
That you will work on your self worth as a spiritual discipline so you can fully grasp that you, you magnificent human being blessed to be walking this physical planet were born for greatness and are worthy and loved beyond your wildest imagination.
Ok so we have now addressed two of the most major things I believe are critical to loving oneself to then be able to go out in the world as a beacon for love and light and all things good. But there is still one more area of love I want to talk about, and that is ….
Love every person you meet.
Anna, that is impossible I hear you say. “There are ASSHOLES out there and narcissists and terrorists and just plain dicks.” I hear you continue to say.
Yes. I say. There are. But isn’t it funny that the ones who probably are in that position in the first place are there because they are missing the one thing in their life that everybody needs the most – Love. And not just love from others, sincere love from themselves.
Don’t get this advice wrong with saying “be everybody’s best friend” .. that isn’t what I’m saying at all. Although if you want to run out there and adopt every person that doesn’t align with you or your values at all knock yourself out.
What I am saying is they can be assholes or rude or narissicistic or whatever else is out of alignment with who you are and what you believe makes a good person but LOVE THEM ANYWAY.
This is going to be hard to do if you yourself do not go out and work on the first two core things I mentioned first though, be selfish with your love (aka love yourself first) and; know how worthy and amazing you are.
But doesn’t it make sense that if you are so full of love yourself and you have such a firm grasp on how worthy you are – so essentially being full of both love and self worth that is what will come out of you anyway? Remember the orange analogy?
Of course it does.
I want to remind you again. Loving everyone, even the ones who you may struggle to love doesn’t mean you have to be their best friend – but you can show respect, decency and love to all human beings, you just can.
So what do I mean by love all of humanity. It means I want you to see the connectedness of us all. And to pour love in every interaction you have.
In my morning meditations before I end it, everyday, I cover the earth in the biggest ball of love that is humanly possible. I feel it reach from inside of me right around the entire globe. I don’t care if you’re blowing up buildings in a country or you were just nasty to your lover – you deserve love, in fact you probably need it the most.
I just want you to see that whatever is inside of people is what comes out – so the more people who fill themselves with love and then can spread love wherever they go – the more peaceful and beautiful this world will be.
I said at the start of all this, that Love, is the one thing that can demand change for the best, heal all pains, find the good and pure in the bad, unite a nation, and even can change the world.
THAT is how – because when you change YOUR world, you change the life of your family. And when you change the life of your family, they go out and impact people at their own schools, or workplaces, or associations and so ultimately you are then changing your whole community for the better. Once you change a whole community, and others are seeing the connectedness of our humanness – you start to change your nation – to the point where you CAN and will change the world.
But….
It all starts with YOU.

What I have shared with you today isn’t ground shaking revolutionary stuff – it’s knowledge you have had within you the whole time. You know that you are worthy of love – giving love, receiving love, being love, sometimes we just need reminding, and I hope this was the reminder you needed.
All I ask is that you stop putting off these exercises you can do above for a ‘better day’ or ‘Monday’ or ‘when you feel more ready’ or worse still .. ‘have more time’ – the world is calling you in to action as of right now, it needs you to step in to your capacity to love more than ever and you have everything you need right here, right now.
So just begin. Today. And don’t stop until your cup is so full every interaction you have is fuelled with, and by love.
And remember – that the world is depending on you to change your world to in turn change THE world. And it starts and ends with YOU.
It’s all up to you and you are SO worthy of living a life of heart centred love.
Cheering you on the loudest and sending you oceans of my own love as you start TODAY on this journey.
Images: Here. Here. Here.