For Love of Lizzo

I’ve said this since Nov. 8, 2016, but joy is an act of resistance. And right now nothing is more joyful than Lizzo. Since it came out late last month I’ve watched her NPR Tiny Desk concert no fewer than four times – just as a little pick-me-up for the soul. Plus, a good booty shake certainly never hurt anyone.

But more than just being joyful, which her music unmistakably is, Lizzo is radical in her love. Love of herself. Love of her audience. Love of what love can really do. And she speaks these radical ideas out loud, to a beat that no one can deny.

When Lizzo says, “It’s so hard trying to love yourself in a world that doesn’t love you back,” you feel it. And when she says, “You deserve to feel good as hell,” you believe it. She frequently says, “If you can love me, you can love yourself.” And, if you really think about that, it’s a wildly radical flipping of the self-worth script.

You often hear, “You can’t love someone until you love yourself.” While probably a well-intentioned way to think about our love and worth, it lays the onus of being worthy or unworthy of love all on our shoulders. So if we’re unworthy of love, i.e. don’t love ourselves, it’s basically our fault. Again, not necessarily the intent, but too often the outcome of this kind of thinking.

But what Lizzo says is, if you can love me (or, really, anyone else) then you already have all the tools you need to love yourself. And that’s a pretty profound way to think about your self worth. It’s not that you are unworthy, because you can love, it’s that you haven’t deemed yourself worthy. But, guess what, you are. I know it, Lizzo knows it, and deep down I truly hope you know it too. Because you deserve to feel good as hell. We all do.