I love you. You’re beautiful.

Pat was a customer when I worked at a local salvage yard.

He would come in every couple of weeks to pick up random things and check in to see how I was. He was one of my favorites, always a pleasure to have in the yard.

One day, Pat was teasing with another customer and complimented me on something. I can’t remember what, but my instinct was to brush it off with something like, “You say that to all the girls” or “Just doing my job.”

My response reminded him of his wife. No matter how often he complimented her, she never believed it. “Every day I tell my wife that she is beautiful and that I love her. She brushes it off and never seems to believe me but I keep telling her—every single day.”

You are beautiful. I love you.

You are beautiful. I love you.

I love you and you are beautiful.

I was 33, had been struggling through my marriage and was now going through a divorce. The idea that this man told his wife that she was beautiful and that he loved her every single day, especially when she didn’t believe it herself, amazed me.

In my heart, I wanted that. I wanted someone to honor and love me enough that every day, no matter whether I heard them or not, they would say, “I love you and you’re beautiful.”

I love you and you are beautiful.

I love you and you are beautiful.

You are love and you are beautiful.

I have learned in my years on this planet that keeping what I want for myself quietly inside gets very little response. The best way to fulfill desire is to love the way I wish to be loved and to speak my desire out loud.

With this thought in my head, I quickly picked up my phone and sent a text. “Just so you know… you are beautiful and I love you.”

I had just started dating someone regularly. He had brought so much acceptance, warmth and healing into my very fragile heart. If this was the way I wanted to be loved, then this is the way that I would love.

I love you and you are beautiful.

I wonder how often I told my husband he was beautiful. I’m sad to say it was probably not enough. I can remember the times that fears or fights pulled back the words I love you from my lips.

You are loved and you are beautiful.

I wonder how often I told myself these words. One of my oldest family cycles has been to feel unloved, unseen, pretty but not worthy. These simple words create something else, something new.

I love you, beautiful.

That day in the salvage yard, Pat gifted me a different awareness around the way I loved. Now I say it every couple of days to a beautiful man who I do love. I also say it to a beautiful woman, who I love more than anything, as she glances back at me in the mirror. She doesn’t always believe me, but she’s beginning to.

And the more I say it, the more I feel it being returned to me.

Try it. Hear it. You won’t be disappointed.

I love you. You are beautiful.

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Author: Melissa Tamura

Editor: Emily Bartran

Photo: Lightroom Brasil/Flickr