Branding and storytelling don’t matter unless...

My friend Brittany is going to think this blog is about her. Not because she’s like that, but because of her last name. In fact, when I think of her in my mind, I use her first initial and then her last name. 

It works out to B. Love.

Which is really convenient because that is exactly what I’m writing about today. So I guess B. Love is right. It is about her, and...

It’s about all of us.

I just finished reading “All About Love: New Visions” by activist, professor, feminist, and scholar, bell hooks. Published in 2001, I believe it is more relevant and more needed today than 20 years ago.

In the book, hooks defined love differently than I’ve ever heard before. I underlined it and read it every day: “I understand love as the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”

(tbh, I’ve underlined at least half of this book so don’t come at me about how that’s sacrilege because I was an English major and this gives me permission to write all over my books and also make-up words like authenticist and then title myself as such)

Read this again, slowly:

Love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.

We all have biases on the word “spiritual” too, so don’t get hung up there - whether your religious, atheist, witchy, woo-woo, or something you define, it doesn’t matter.

Let’s take spiritual to mean our actualization and purpose of why we’re here on this Earth.

hooks blew my mind in every chapter by outlining how to approach life using this lens of love: 

how to voice love, 

how to heal childhood love wounds, 

how to commit to ourselves and BE LOVE (Brittany already has this part down), 

how to experience spiritually divine love, 

how to live our values and live by a love ethic, 

how greed and racism can be healed through love, 

how to lift our communities in love, 

how to experience mutual love with our partners and friends, 

why romantic love is so fraught for so many, 

how grief, love, and death intermingle 

and how to manifest our destinies through love.

I mean, this is some seriously heavy sh*t right here.

And also, it’s not.

It’s what we all crave. It’s why we’re here. It’s our purpose.

If you’re wondering why the eff I’m writing to you about love instead of branding or storytelling or marketing or social media or entrepreneurship, you’re clearly new here. 

All of that? It needs to be based in love.

You can’t be a visionary changing the world for the better unless love is present within you and in how you serve others.

You can’t tell better stories without vulnerability and love.

You can’t share YOU without loving yourself first.

You can’t BE LOVE unless you are bringing it to everything you do, every day of your life.

(do not read this as you have to be perfect. no one is and no one will ever be.)

So here’s my plea:

It’s the end of the calendar year (time really isn’t real but it’s hella convenient to look at our priorities this time of year)... 

Maybe it’s YOUR time to reflect on how you contribute to your own growth, and the growth of others every day.

Maybe it’s time for you to reset and get grounded in your purpose again.

Maybe it’s time for you to truly understand your approach to loving yourself, those around you, and the world.

Love really is the answer. It starts with us.

And we can all BE LOVE. (even though Brittany is the OG…)

Xox, Michelle

✨✨✨✨✨

P.S. If this is speaking to you, I’ll be offering a workshop in January to help people (whether you’re a biz owner or not) reflect, return and root into their purpose. I’ve offered it before to many accolades, and it is something I truly love to do. You can register here. And it’s free.

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