If you’ve hung around my blog, you know my love for my goldfinches. If you’ve hung around my home, you know that I’ve been given all sorts of yellow birds by all sorts of people.
One of my kids commented on yellow being my favorite color.
Here’s the deal. I made it all up. Now it fills me full.
During a particularly tough time, I decided that every time I saw a goldfinch, because they’re so beautiful, it would mean that I would be okay and everything would be okay. I remember my mother telling me that I should wait for them to come to me, so the universe could give me what I needed and wanted when it thought “right.”
Hell no! I walked the neighborhood looking for cone flowers (one of their faves). I put goldfinch bird food in my birdfeeder. I drove out of my way near trees and down streets where I’d seen them before.
Every time I saw one, I delighted. My heart soared. Then I’d go look for more. More goldfinches, more birds.
I learned the sound they make and their flight pattern, so that I could find them in the distance.
Every time I saw one, I delighted even more. My heart soared higher. I knew I was loved. (I so needed to be loved.)
I did this so often, that the color yellow itself started to soar my heart and delight me. (This is neuroplasticity – the way our brains evolve and change and learn. I taught myself to be delighted with and by yellow.)
I now have yellow pants. Yellow mismatched earrings. A yellow umbrella. A yellow jumper that I bought for a fiver in a charity shop in London. I’m about to buy a yellow outdoor umbrella for my deck.
Loving yourself First Most Always is an opportunity to prime your brain and heart to be delighted by something. Surrounding yourself with this thing – or color – is a way to love yourself First Most Always.
Life has been hard recently, and I found myself less prone to seeking out the things that bring me joy and delight. I found myself walking past the many yellow birds in my home and not quite registering their yellowness, their joy-giving abilities, the fact that each one was a gift from someone who loves me. Welp, except for the ones I bought in Riga and Paris to bring me joy also with the memories.
I decided to reorient myself to all the joy, all the love, all the beauty in my life, even with the hard right now. To remember to pay attention, to be present. To love myself First Most Always by delighting in – and surrounding myself with – my yellow birds and all my yellow.
Find your favorite color or delighting thing, and love yourself First Most Always.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and please share this post with others if it resonates with you. Let’s start a movement of loving ourselves First Most Always™️!