A Love Letter

Happy Valentine's Day!

I believe that each of us wants to be deeply loved, and that without that love, we will never find the happiness we crave. No matter how much money you make, how beautiful your body or how many accolades you acquire, at the core of who you are, you desire to be deeply loved.

And yet, how many of us would be willing to stand up and admit to the world this deepest of deep desires? Would you? Of course you might express that you would really like a loving relationship, that your family is important to you, or even that you'd like to take better care of yourself.

But would you peel back the curtain that protects your delicate soul to reveal that inside is the most innocent and pure heart, one who craves to be seen by another so deeply that you could almost feel that person witnessing your soul? Would you show us the holes of loneliness that sometimes surface on that same heart when your soul feels unseen, unheard, un-understood?

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

The loneliest times of my life have been in relationship - be it with a parent, a friend or a romantic partner - in which I called out to be seen, when I reached out for unconditional love, and neither was returned.

After 30 years of trying to find that deep love from the people around me whom I loved, I was gifted with a profound realization, one that I have since come to understand is the secret to everything in life. When we live by it, the happiness and love we seek is ever present. When we don't, we will find ourselves forever seeking out happiness and love, in vain.

The secret is this:
The deep love you seek starts and ends with the love you have for you.

Every person on this planet, including you, desires to be deeply loved. At the core of your soul, your spirit requires that in this lifetime you seek out and find unconditional and pure love. The reason most of us spend our lives searching without ever really finding it, is not because this precious love doesn't exist, or even that it is rare. You've been taught to look in the wrong places - outside of you - when the truth is that the love you seek starts and ends with the love you have for you.

It is your right to fall so deeply in love with yourself that you only invite that same kind of unconditional love into your life. It is your quest in this lifetime to get to know who you truly are in your soul, beyond all the surface and societal muck that covers up your beautiful spirit. It is your gift to learn to accept the person you are today, right now in this moment and love him or her, all of you. And it is your duty to free yourself to fully express every piece of you without apology, so brightly that it lights every heart it touches like a firefly, including yours.

That is self-love. Being. Loving. Living. You.

When you can do this, you not only receive the extraordinary ability to feel the greatest of love, but you also gain the ability to give that same deep love back, giving others the gift of witnessing and loving their beautiful souls.

My wish for you is that today, you start and/or deepen your journey of falling madly in love with the powerful, beautiful and free being you are, just because you are you!


With great heart and in service of self-love,




Christine Arylo
Author of Choosing ME Before WE
Founder of Madly in Love with ME
Co-Founder of Inner Mean Girl Reform School