By: Katherine Itacy, Esq.
Dated: February 16, 2018
As I mentioned on my very first podcast with my best friend, Nikki Marchesseault, “Hammer Time with Nikki and Kate: A Disabled Lawyer and a Personal Trainer Walk into a Podcast,” I recently read this amazing book, “Love Warrior,” by Glennon Doyle Melton. I’d heard it was a good book, and I was looking for a new memoir/autobiography to read, so I gave it a chance.
Man, was a captivated within a few pages! This woman can write. She is an incredible storyteller, and was so unabashedly honest about her struggles with bulimia, drug and alcohol abuse, and generally feeling like an outsider in the world.
She explains that after a very long time of abusing and neglecting her body, she finds out that she’s pregnant, and decides at that very moment that she will quit her methods of self-abuse cold turkey in order to protect her child’s health and embrace her new role as a mother.
Glennon and her partner then get married; they end up having three beautiful children, and she really enjoys getting into her new roles of wife and stay-at-home mom.
Unfortunately, ten years into the marriage, her husband admits that he’s been having one-night stands since just a few months after their wedding. At this point, Glennon has to decide what her future is going to look like: Will she stay with her husband? If she does, will she ever be able to trust him or be intimate with him again? If she files for divorce, how will her life as a single mother work when the rest of her family lives miles and miles away? How will it work out with co-parenting their children if she’s still so mad at her husband?
At this point in the book, Glennon describes her anger and feelings of utter betrayal at this seemingly perfect man destroying the family that she has been so fully invested in for the last decade. She turns to spirituality and goes to counseling, does yoga and controlled breathing, and eventually realizes that if she can ask her higher power for forgiveness at being a flawed individual, then maybe her husband isn’t a monster – maybe he’s just flawed, too, and is entitled to the same forgiveness from God that she is.
As she tries to co-parent, stay strong for her kids and heal herself, Glennon finally takes the time to care for her mind, body and spirit. Of course, this is really uncomfortable for her, because she’s never had a healthy relationship with her body, with food or with her feelings. She wants to run away from her emotions, but she learns the way of the Warrior, and works each day to submerge herself in her feelings and process them for as long as she can bear. The next day, she does the same thing and tries to process them for just a little bit longer. She doesn’t try and go from broken to full healed in a day, a week, a month or a year; she accepts that this will be a lifelong process for her, but as long as she keeps working on it, she will be able to get through it, as well as anything else life throws her way.
Anyway, all of this back story is to say that by the end of the book, Glennon has finally started to understand what self-love is all about, and how by taking the time to tend to her mind, body and soul, she will be a better person, writer, minister, wife and mother.
I think a lot of us, especially women, forget about this. We think that completely sacrificing ourselves to our partner or our children or our career is what is required or expected of a “good” wife, mother or professional. But once we get to the end of our lives, do we really want to have sacrificed who we are for the sake of others? Is that really doing anyone a favor? Would you want your daughters to do the same thing to themselves when they get into a relationship or start a family?
I’m certainly guilty of this. As I explain in my upcoming book, I spent years neglecting and abusing my body for the sake of my career, my clients and my now-ex-husband. Without a doubt, doing so has shortened my lifespan, made me unable to bear children, and severely impaired my quality of life. I had so little regard for my physical form that I damn near killed myself in order to help others and make my then-husband happy. How was that fair or respectful to myself in any way? Why did I think so little of myself and the quality of my life? Where did I learn to do that? Why did I think that was okay?
Anyway, Glennon ends “Love Warrior” by detailing a conversation that she had with her daughters about what it means to be “pretty” or “desirable” in this world. She explains that the definition of “pretty” is an always-changing idea crafted by corporations in order to sell products, so instead of wanting to be “pretty,” why don’t you try to be “beautiful,” meaning “full of beauty”? Figure out what you love in the world (e.g., dancing in your room, singing in the car, being near the ocean, volunteering for a charity, going to Bible study, being with your family, whatever it is that makes you happy), and fill yourself up with those experiences each and every day.
I can completely identify with and embrace her definition of beauty. Being a beautiful person should mean nourishing your mind, body and soul, and then making your happiness something that you can share with others. It may be hard to practice everyday, especially with how busy our lives can get with the mundane, everyday tasks, but the more often you can practice self-love, the more beauty you can share with the world.
It may have taken me a very long time (and becoming physically disabled) to understand and appreciate the importance of self-love, including nourishment and care for your physical form, but I get it now; thanks, in large part, to Glennon Doyle Melton.
I have now vowed to try and fill myself with beauty each and every day of my life, for the rest of my life, and I would encourage each and every one of you to do the same. I guarantee that you’ll be the happier for it, and our world will be that much more beautiful because of it.
Katherine Itacy 