Learn to love yourself first !
July 03, 2015
Today I lost the respect of a few people I love, and the desire to kill myself. In a nutshell, I’ve chosen to love and honor myself, instead of convincing others to do it for me every day.
Most of us understand what it means to love another person. The feelings of intense desire, admiration and emotional investment in another person are likely familiar. We go through great lengths to nurture our love towards others. But loving yourself? That can feel like a foreign concept to many of us. Self-love is a combination of self-acceptance, self-possession (different than self-obsession), self-awareness, and kindness and respect for ourselves. Self-love is both conceptual, an idea that you are worthy of self respect and gentleness, and an action, treating yourself with compassion and nurturance. Put simply, self-love is positive self-regard in action.
Because the greatest struggle in life is the struggle to accept, embrace and love ourselves, with all of our imperfections. To be 100% honest about who we are, how we feel and what we need. To stop discrediting ourselves for everything we aren’t, and start giving ourselves credit for everything we are. And to be aware that not everyone we love will agree with us every step of the way, and to be OK with it.
We have to learn to be our own best friends, because sometimes we fall too easily into the trap of being our own worst enemies. We love the idea of others loving us, and we forget to love ourselves.
What we must realize is that our greatest task is not about discovering self-love; it’s about breaking down the walls we have built against it. When we have the courage to push through these walls – to know and embrace ourselves, despite our humanness, our flaws, and our rejections – we also open the door to connecting in more caring, emphatic and intimate ways with others who are truly worth loving.
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