When I was little, and my parents were out of the house me and my sister used to play music up stairs and sometimes even downstairs in the carport and dance to it.

One song that came up quite a lot was “The greatest love of all” by Whitney Houston. It is an absolutely brilliant song and I use to love it for what it used to mean to me and how it used to make me feel when singing and dancing to.

Back then until I heard this song, I didn’t even know that to be loved fully and truly for who you are you first had to love yourself. I wondered for years what that song and the words really meant. Why would the greatest love of all be to love yourself?

My childhood was not the greatest of childhoods that a child could have as I was constantly made to feel unloved, unwanted as though I did not belong and as though I was never good enough by my Family and the people around me. My childhood was a very sad and lonely existence and I thought that love was what you got from or received from others when you fit in to their perception of what perfect was. So I learnt to push all my feelings deep down inside of me and I never spoke up about my own needs in the fear of displeasing those around me.

I was never perfect although in my eyes I tried to be and that was where my journey of being a people pleaser began. From the age of 8 through to 30 I was continually seeking love and approval from others to feel better about myself because the way I saw it is if others could and did love me then I could start to love myself. Those that I sought it from always took advantage of me and the fact that I wanted to fit in and be loved\liked so much.

I thought at the time that it was just me being good natured and people saw my good nature and not wanting conflict and exploited it for their own personal gain even the 2 girls I considered to be my best friends took what they wanted from me including having affairs and cheating on me with my partners. They thought it was ok to do so as I would be ok with it that I wouldn’t mind them trying to take what I held dearest from me because they could because they couldn’t see me
objecting to what they were doing.

It wasn’t until my 30s when I was single that I truly realised what the true meaning of that song was as I began to explore every part of me (physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually). This was where my personal development journey began as I was depressed having gone through so much in my life and being having nothing to show for my life.

Sure I had a career, dated, was able to support myself financially but that just wasn’t enough for me. I wanted and longed for something more out of life a purpose and meaning to my life that I was unable to find. I was sad and depressed and withdrawn from the world around me in many ways. I even had my 60-year-old neighbour tell me that when I first moved into the unit next door to her that she could see I was in a dark and withdrawn place and she was frightened to say hello to me however a couple of years into my personal development journey we became really good friends. She told me I had changed and opened up so much to the world in those couple of years that I was almost like a different person.

A few years after that I started up a personal training and lifestyle mentoring business and which made me happy but I still felt that something was missing and so I continued down the personal development path until I knew the what that song actually meant as I did and experienced so many things that made me happy that helped me to face my fears and find out who I was and truly love myself for who I was without having to search for love externally as I loved myself truly and knew who I was and what the meaning of my life was and that gave me joy.

I work in an industry where I help organisations improve technologically now and I have opened up a coaching business and constantly helping others with their lives as well as learning, growing and changing within myself all the time.

In 2019 I started writing my book and articles and I get a lot of positive interaction from my articles about my life and what I have been through and how inspiring I am and how I now give people hope and the desire to continue living and moving forward with their lives. I now also have a recommendation on my writing and my social medial videos saying that they helped pull someone out of the depths of despair and depression (darkness) and move positively forward with their life
which is a massive complement to me and who I am and the meaning I now have for my life.

The meaning I have for my life now is to make a massive impact on other people lives though my coaching, writing, and speaking whether it be on video or otherwise. My purpose is to one day buy an orphanage do it up and give the orphans the love, support and personal development education I never had so that they can grow up to be the worlds future leaders and don’t have to feel as though the are not loved, not enough and do not belong.

So coming back to this song now. The Whitney Houston song “The greatest love of all” now has 2 meanings for me and they are:

1) The children are our future, and they need to be loved and taken care of and to know what it feels like to be loved and to love themselves.
2) It is the greatest love of all to love yourself and to know how you are and what you are about by daring to be yourself loving yourself for doing so.

So, can you tell me after listening to this song what it says to you?

What does the lyrics of this song mean to you?

Here is the YouTube link: https://youtu.be/IYzlVDlE72w to the full song for you to listen to my video of me singing is only a snippet of that actual song so please listen to it all the way through to the end via the link above.

I do now truly know what it to truly love myself as I do love myself and it is the most amazing gift, I have ever given myself! ©

Copyright © 2022 Lynette Diehm.

All rights reserved. No part of this post may be used or reproduced by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews

#daretobeyou, #daretobeyouinlife, #daretobeyourself, #selflove, #loveyourself, #empowerment, #love, #confidence, #daretobebold, #daretotouch, #empowerment, #selfawareness, #selfesteem, #selfconfidence, #selfrespect, #selfcare, #care, #daretobeyoucoaching, #mindsetcoaching, #transformationalcoaching, #coachingdaretobeyou, #daretoletsoemoneelsetakethewheel, #daretofaceyourfearsheadon, #daretobetrasnformed, #personaldevelopmentcoaching, #personalcoaching, #daretobehappy, #daretobesuccessful, #daretosucceed, #mentalhealth, #personalgrowth, #selfworth,ratitude, #Yourself, #Outstanding, #Unstoppable, # Dare To Be You