Change Your Tune

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.” ― Lucille Ball.

There was a time back in the Eighties when WPIX, a New York radio station, played nothing but love songs.

I'm not sure if there are any other types of popular songs, as love in one form or another seems to be theme in nearly every song I've ever hear.

Nevertheless, that was their schtick and the station went so far as to run a series of TV commercials featuring clay animation cherubs to reel in new listeners.

I didn’t much care for the format and those clay angels creeped me out, but the concept is coming back to me now as I look to get my mind in some kind of healthy condition.

I’ve heard for decades about the importance loving yourself and how you can never really be happy until you do.

It sounded great, but I could never could my head around it. Loving your family, your significant other, your dog—that all makes sense. But how do I go about loving me?

Now self-loathing I get without a hitch, and as a result, I’m quite quite good at it. But I've always viewed self-love as a form of narcissism.

I’ve spent enough time being forced to listen to a series of loud-mouth boors, including the one we recently kicked out of the White House. I don’t want to join the club.

Of course, this isn’t the case. Self-love is really self-care, where you do what you can to support your emotional and physical health.

However, while I can recognize the concept, I’m still having trouble applying to myself.

I’ve been YouTube-ing my way through a series of self-help videos recently and I came upon a recording by the spiritual teacher Teal Swan.

Her advice is simple: for one year you have to act as if you loved yourself.

She doesn’t expect you to immediately drop all your toxic thought patterns and adopt a whole new attitude.

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All she wants you to do is consider what it would be like if you did love yourself.

So, I’ve been trying it. When I feel negative thoughts coming on, I try to think, “if you loved yourself, you wouldn’t tear yourself down.”

You wouldn’t hang around people who don’t respect you. You’d choose to exercise and eat healthy foods. And you’d work on your goals and dreams.

I find the "as if" aspect helpful, as if I'm trying the idea on for size, rather than signing an ironclad contract.

It hasn't been easy, but that's hardly surprising.

Negative thoughts are constantly ricocheting around my skull and bad memories have a fast track into my consciousness, while my pleasant recollections are routinely MIA.

The long-term fix includes mindfulness, journaling, and therapy.

But I’ve also been employing a short-term method to stop the negative vibes before they get too powerful.

I play nothing but love songs on my mental juke box.

So, if I’m feeling hostile, I’ll crank out the Beatles’ hit “All You Need is Love.” If I’m feeling depressed, I’ll call up Rosemary Clooney singing Hank Williams’ classic “Half as Much.”

On Friday morning, when crummy ideas disrupted my morning meditation, I switched on Huey Lewis & the News singing “The Power of Love.”

The funny thing is, I didn’t particularly care for this song when it came out in 1985 on the soundtrack for Back to the Future, but now it’s an important part of my emotional arsenal.

This all sounds ridiculous, of course, but that’s the point. I want to confuse and distract all that hostile energy and music really does hath charms to soothe the savage breast.

There is no magic cure and it takes a variety of techniques and serious commitment to overhaul your brain. But I feel now at this stage of my life that I'm really committed to being happy—or at least, happier, something I’ve ignored for far too long.

WPIX dropped its love song-only format years ago, the station changed its call letters and it is now a sports channel.

No matter. I still have my own playlist and I’m giving my sneaky subconscious a direct order:

Don’t touch that dial.