Let the First Love of Your Life Be YOU
[Music]
i would like to start this talk by
asking you to take an exercise with me
during times where we can’t hardly
control anything
controlling the way we breathe is
probably
one of the few things left within our
power
so i want you to take a deep breath in
through your nose
and exhale through your mouth
i want you to close your eyes and do
that three times
and whilst you do that i want you to
focus solely on your breath
forget what’s for dinner forget the
emails left to reply
be here now in this present moment
and with your eyes still closed i want
you to think of the three people you
love the most in the world
don’t think about it too much whoever
comes to your mind
who are those special someone that has a
special place in your heart you can open
your eyes now
now let me ask you a question in which
place were you on your own list
first second third
or like the vast majority of us you
didn’t even make it
to your own list my name is fabidoria
i’m a self-love expert and that’s
exactly what i want to talk about today
the importance of self-love we are
taught
so many things at school except the most
important one
which is to love ourselves
without confusing self-love with
selfishness
you should always be the first love of
your life and you want to know why
one you’re the only person you can ever
divorce
and two you cannot give to others what
you cannot give to yourself
so if it’s love you’re looking for you
must be able to love your
whole self first now let me tell you
something about my
own journey to self-love i don’t know
about you
but i’m from the disneyland and princess
generation
and for a while i did expect prince
charming to come and save me
for myself and i waited
and waited and waited a little bit
longer
but he never came no one told me
i was the orchestrator of this fine
symphony called life
and that if i did not get my sword and
slayed your dragon myself
i would have never experienced this deep
love within
now this wasn’t an easy journey
but it all started with a simple
but yet powerful question i’ll take you
back in time
who am i am i my name
or my profession am i the daughter
or the son am i the whisperer
or the one that listens can i be all
and yet be none and as the water
washes away all that i am and yet i’m
not
i realize that my true being
lies deep down inside my core
who am i
you see i have been asking myself this
question as long as i can remember
growing up in sunny brazil where our
skin is often exposed
having the perfect curvy body
felt like an obligation add that to a
society that judges you by the way you
walk
talk what car you drive where the
university went to and
if you have a ring on your finger
oh yes that’s very important your civil
status is a measure of your worthiness
as a woman
oh and kids you must have kids before
you’re 30 i mean
you’re here to procreate and perpetuate
the species right
add that to the pressure of being the
youngest of two perfect happily married
sisters
what a weight i spent years trying to be
the perfect student
strictly straight ace the perfect
daughter the perfect girlfriend the
perfect citizen
i spent my life hiding under the shield
of perfectionism
in order to hide my own sense of
inadequacy for myself
and others so many labels that led me to
believe that i’m only worth
as much as the carrots on my fingers and
that the more stuffed money titles
i had the more available to others into
society
i would be but what happens if i lose
the object
that i tie my value to will i still be
worthy
what if i gain weight or if i don’t get
married
will i still be worthy of love of care
of compassion i never wanted to be
perfect
i just wanted to be seen to be really
seen and not just looked at
not to feel ashamed of having cellulite
or to feel less for not having kids
but i didn’t know better i was fat the
one fits already made cake recipe for
happiness
which was get a job that pays even
though it doesn’t bring you happiness
get married have kids and maybe but then
just maybe
travel once a year i mean that sounds
like an awfully happy life
right my sisters did it so could i
and so was i i got my bachelor’s in law
and i was engaged to a good
man the problem with that
is that i felt sad lost
lonely and disconnected from everyone
and quite frankly from life
and the pressure to be happy just
worsening things
i mean how ungrateful was i i had
everything a woman could
wish for and yet i felt worthless
who was i that cake they fed me
tasted horrible and so i decided to pick
up my
own ingredients and bake myself a
delicious chocolate lava cake
i got on a plane and i left life as i
knew behind
career country fiance family fears math
identities
you name it i decided to dig deep into
the ocean of my soul
to find the pieces of me i lost along
the way in order to become
something or someone i was expected to
be
11 years in london by myself a changing
career
and a whole lot of lessons later i
finally discovered that the choice
to marry myself first was the best
choice i’ve made in my life
that self-love was the only way within
so that i would not live life without
and thanks to that i now know that my
worthiness is not linked to anything
external
i’m not defined by my possessions or by
my civil status
i’m not defined by my diploma or the car
that
doesn’t sit in my garage i
am does my wife deliver to a stranger
i am the warm hug when a friend needs
i am the love i choose to spread and i
choose to spread love
every day of my life so now when people
ask me if i’m married
i say hell yeah i consecrated the holy
matrimony to the only person i’ll never
be able to divorce
can you guess what that is and not only
do i know my worth and who i
am but i baked my cake
and it tastes delicious so my question
to you is
what’s your flavor luckily for me
i was able to use my pain as full and
leave everything behind
had i stayed and listened to people’s
opinion i would probably
be stuck in an unhappy life because i
didn’t choose myself
i would have probably become a product
of people’s expectations and as a matter
of fact
i wouldn’t be here with you today
sharing my story
had i not chosen to be the first love of
my life
i would still be wandering around
feeling half
empty looking for another halftimp
person to
complete me and that’s exactly where
it realized the problem the problem with
relationships is that people
are trying to build a relationship from
the outside in
when in fact we need to learn how to
build a relationship from the inside
out for the simple reason that the
relationship you establish with yourself
permeates all other relationships in
your life and we repeat
the way you relate to yourself dictates
how you relate to money
to your coworkers to your partner to
your family
and to the world around you and as a
matter of fact you can be happy single
and you can be happy married but it’s
impossible to be happy
in the absence of self-love now
this doesn’t mean you have to take my
journey to self-love
on the contrary it means that you get to
choose you
at any given moment in your life it
means that before finding someone else
you need to find yourself first can you
close your eyes
and imagine just for a moment
how your life would be if you just
choose you
just for a brief moment
now let me take you back to that
expression my other half
let me ask you a question are you half
human being
wait let me answer that one no
you were a complete whole indivisible
expression of nature
perhaps looking for another complete
whole human
to walk alongside by you on this journey
called life
can you distinguish the difference
between complete
and complement when you say you want
someone to complete you
it means you’re either lacking or you’re
missing something
anyone that someone to fill in a void
that it’s yours to feel
and that’s not fair to you or to the
person
it’s not fair to the person because you
place an unrealistic expectation on the
relationship
and it’s not fair to you well for the
same reasons
but when you say you want someone to
complement you
it means that you have acknowledged that
you’re both wholesome
and hence the relationship becomes a lot
lighter and wholehearted when you accept
yourself as you are
you accept the other as they are
you don’t look at a rainbow and say i
wish there was a little bit more of
yellow or a darker tone of blue
you just appreciate the rainbow as it is
so next time you think of changing
someone
think of them as human rainbows
beautiful and majestic
with all its colors and nuances
because true freedom can only exist
when there is acceptance of your whole
self
true self love can only be reached when
you acknowledge that you’re complete
but yet imperfect and that every
situation
every motion deserves to be looked at
and
embraced and understood with kind eyes
for all that we are
relies at the very core of what makes us
human
of what makes our stories unique
change won’t happen to you
change will happen from you
so what are you waiting for princess
kill the enemy created by your own mind
jump out of the castle that imprisons
you only you can save yourself
don’t ever place the keys to living a
wholehearted life
in someone else’s pocket what’s your
story
in this book called life
now to end this talk i would like to
propose a final exercise
and for this exercise i want you to
think of
all the traits that you envision
your special someone to have
it can be personality traits financial
circumstances
and i want you to do a checklist and
once you’re done with this checklist i
want you to go
item by item and ask yourself with all
honesty
do i embody and cultivate this trait
within me
and if your answer is no to any of these
traits i don’t want you to wait for
someone to give it to you
i want you to roll up your sleeves and
get to work
because this is your voice to feel this
is your responsibility
now one last thing i would like to bring
out on my journey to self-love
i spoke about my journey to wholeness
and how that implied
leaving behind my necessity to fit into
spaces i no longer belonged
and i spoke about what it took to get me
here it wasn’t an easy journey
actually saying it wasn’t easy it’s an
understatement
it was very hard and arduous and lonely
but had i not gone through that i would
never be able to be here
with you today had i stayed
and try to be accepted and loved by
everyone else
but myself i would have never allowed
life to flow
through me and yes the sense of
belonging is great
when it doesn’t cost you peace when it
doesn’t cost your soul
when you don’t have to pay the price
with your life
so i’m incredibly grateful for having
the courage to
choose me and i hope you do too
because in a world that constantly
demands you to choose
something else choosing you
is an act of bravery thank you