The Art of Radical Self Love

[Music]

love

is audacious self-love

in a world that seeks to enforce

conformity

is a radical act i don’t have statistics

or data to share with you today

all i have is my story and it is one

of transformational love

my journey with radical self-love began

a number of years ago when i was living

in portland oregon

it was a winter day on a saturday

morning and my wife was out of state

on a retreat she’d been looking forward

to and i was

stretching when i felt a lump

it was hard and very obviously not

supposed to be there

because i had worked in radiology

clinics a cancer institute

and many years as a medical illustrator

i knew immediately

what it was and because it was a

saturday

all i could do was leave a voicemail for

my doctor

and my wife would have been hard to get

a hold of and i didn’t

want her driving six hours home with

this scary information

so there i was with a lump in my chest

that felt like a thousand pound weight

i was alone with this information

like many people in the u.s i’ve known

far too many loved ones

who have battled cancer and at that

point in time had two close friends

who had recently lost this battle so

this

sudden look at an early death hit me

hard

and sucked the air right out of my lungs

i felt a complete sense of despair

and a deep fear that felt like it would

overcome me

at some point i decided to go for a walk

i’d managed to drag myself out of the

house and i went to the waterfront

esplanade in portland

there’s a big river called the

willamette that cuts the city in half

and there’s all these bridges across it

it’s a great place to think

as i began walking my legs felt like

cinder blocks sluggish and cumbersome

everything was blurry through my tears

as i was walking i started thinking

about

all of the people i love and thinking

do they know how much i love them

do they know what they mean to me

their faces were flashing in front of my

mind’s eye

as well as little snippets of joy we’ve

experienced together

and this feeling of gratitude

for all of the wonderful people in my

life

washed over me the feeling was

visceral and warming

because the terrible depressed feelings

enveloping me all morning were in such

stark contrast to this feeling of

gratitude

i decided to name everything i could

think of to be grateful for

i walked and walked for hours that

afternoon

at first i named big things obvious

things that i was grateful for

and then i began to expand name things

that i take for granted every day like

i remember feeling grateful for the

warmth of the sun on my back

and the fact that it was sunny at all

that day trust me that is unusual for a

portland winter

next i began feeling grateful for my

physical body

my legs which were carrying me my

eyesight to see the sun sparkling on the

water

all of this gratitude began to really

change how i felt

in my body i was still scared and sad

don’t get me wrong but the physical

sensation of sheer

terror had been replaced

by what i can only describe as

love connecting with the things i love

in the world brought me peace

and it got me through one of the

scariest days of my life

even today years later

gratitude connects me with love in the

moment

i challenge you after you watch this set

a timer on your phone for two minutes

during that time name gratitude for as

many things as you can think of

then just take note of how you feel

afterwards

seriously you have two minutes try it

this was a real lesson for me and it’s

something that i have practiced often

in the days and years since there are

all kinds of ways to integrate a

gratitude practice into your life

i highly recommend keeping a daily

gratitude journal

for a number of years now my wife and i

end each day by telling each other the

highlight of our day

and now our four-year-old asked us the

highlight of our day at the dinner table

i used to think that it was joy that

brings about gratitude

but now i think it’s the opposite i

think that it is gratitude

that generates joy and love

that brings me to another lesson that i

learned through my journey with cancer

i had begun to feel truly grateful for

my body on that walk

for so many things that i take for

granted every day

about my physical body as time inched

closer to the day of the surgery to

remove

the cancer from my body i began thinking

about healing

and i realized that i had a bad habit

i noticed that every time i saw myself

in a mirror or

caught a reflection in a window that i

saw this reflection with criticism

i realized in fact that i had a habit of

sending hatred

to my body pretty much every time i saw

myself in a mirror i would see myself

but only through the lens of my quote

flaws

i saw this really clearly in my mind’s

eye that i had been sending hate

to my body for nearly as long as i can

remember and i thought

how am i going to heal my body while

sending it hate

i made a promise to myself that day that

i would never again

send hate to my body my body

is beautiful my body is whole

my body is sacred

it got me through cancer and everything

else life is thrown my way

and here’s what i want each and every

one of you to know

you are beautiful you are whole

and you are sacred right now

in this moment as is

we are constantly bombarded with

messages of

you’re not enough this you’re too much

that

you’re not man enough you’re not woman

enough you’re not special

these messages come from all sides and

it’s really easy to internalize them

then the messages of not enough and too

much

start echoing from inside our own minds

and

they make us want to hide i had been

hating my body for all kinds of reasons

but the thing is i’m not alone we can

all relate to these messages in some

form or another

when we hide our most authentic

vulnerable selves

we also hide our growth the truth

is that we are all going through change

through transformation

some of us are going through intentional

changes others

we might be changing to the mere fact of

growing older each day

but we are all transforming every day

and you and i we get to love ourselves

today don’t kick the can of loving

yourself down the road

you don’t have to wait until someday to

start loving yourself

because i guarantee when that someday

comes

you’ll have new goals and that’s okay

you

get to have goals you get to change your

life if you need to or want to you get

to change your body

if you need to or want to but you get to

love yourself

through those changes you get to love

yourself today

each and every one of you is beautiful

whole and sacred

just as is

one of the things that grew from my

dedication to radical self-love was

permission

permission to do what i love

that’s me and my happy place

most of the time i’m a fine artist i go

by trans painter

get it trans painter i

decided to treat my fine art with the

same respect that i treat my day job

i dedicated to myself that i would spend

at least 10 minutes per day

making the art that i wanted to make i

could spend the whole rest of the day

making work that makes money but for a

minimum of 10 minutes a day

i go into my studio and make art for me

it’s surprising how fast a body of work

can add up with a commitment

to 10 minutes per day after two years i

found myself

making work that i knew was different i

was on to something

i had found my thing for me

my thing is making portraits of my

community

i create larger-than-life paintings

of transgender and non-binary people

because

i love going to art museums and

galleries i love seeing

giant artworks taking up bold space

and i see a real lack of representation

of my community

in those spaces in learning to love

myself

i am becoming more able to love others

and i hope that love comes through in my

paintings

i’m working to build reflections of my

community

and our diverse truths to help fill the

gap

i see in my community

a group of people who have something to

teach

these are all individuals who have

looked inside themselves and said

this is who i am and i’m going to live

with integrity

no matter what the world around me says

i’m going to live my truth

my community’s very existence is a

radical act

of love in loving myself

enough to give my own artwork time to

develop

i ended up finding my calling

love helped me transform my life

in three key ways that i want to share

with you today

number one start with gratitude

you can do this anytime and anywhere it

doesn’t even take that long

it will improve your outlook it will

help you deal with whatever’s in front

of you

even if you’re dealing with terribly

difficult things take two minutes

get some fresh air if you can think of

10 things you’re grateful for

then go back to your day i’m not saying

this will solve your problems

but it will shift your internal world

gratitude connects you with love in the

moment

number two practice radical self-love

what do i mean when i say radical

self-love i mean

notice when you hear those mean messages

in your head

acknowledge them and then replace them

with affirmation

i haven’t got it all figured out yet and

i still struggle some days

but that’s why it’s called a practice

you get to love yourself

today and try again tomorrow

and know this you are beautiful whole

and sacred just as is

number three prioritize your passion

let it take up space too often

our inner critics tell us our passions

aren’t enough

aren’t special or silly

owning our passions and dreams in the

world is a vulnerable

and powerful act whether we’re giving

time

in our schedules voice in a story

or physical space in our homes or

galleries

prioritizing our dreams and investing in

our passions

is a practice of self-love and it’s also

a powerful way

to share that love with the world

i was watching when lena weith

a black queer woman accepted her

historic emmy and said

the things that make us different those

are our superpowers

she reminded all of us who are a little

different

to understand that loving yourself is a

superpower you know

we’re all a little different when we

practice

shifting fear into gratitude we build

happier lives for ourselves

and by accepting ourselves and living

authentically

we inspire others to do the same

i know these three practices can change

our internal worlds

and i believe that maybe if we practice

these three simple things

we could change the rest of the world

too

[Applause]