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]