“Self Love”, the buzz word of the moment. And quite honestly, I’m a fan and think it's great! However, I want to talk about what self love really means and why it’s so important. (Real quick note...self love and self care are not the same thing, nor are they mutually inclusive. Self care can be a consequence of your self love, however, your self care can be top notch and you could still not love yourself.)
It’s actually quite ironic that we have to learn how to love ourselves .Think about that for a moment? When did we learn not to love ourselves? Love is our first emotion - love is the ‘I Am’ in us and somehow we forget what it means to love ourselves. Why? How? At some point in our lives we all run into an experience, a person, a relationship etc. that opens the door to self doubt or starts the questioning of ourselves.
Real talk, how many people have been asked, “Who do you think you are?” Was it while you were in the middle of feeling yourself? Or was it when you shared with someone your vision that was beyond their comprehension? Or were you just minding your business and in all your glory?
We’ve all been confronted with the idea that loving ourselves unapologetically is wrong, selfish and quite possibly an affront to God. Go to thesaurus.com and look up a synonym for self love. The first three words are conceit, narcissism and vanity - quite comical if you ask me. Loving yourself has not been valued or even taught. We’re taught to look outside of ourselves to find what will make us loveable. And if we don’t hit these ridiculous markers, we feel unworthy of love, even to ourselves!
But why? Why is loving yourself considered so negative? The short answer is...if someone can control how and what you think about yourself and even manipulate what makes you loveable - they own you. Period! Think about how our day-to-day and even major life decisions are based on what we think of ourselves. If we have no self love, we accept and believe what we are told of who we are and all life flows from that point. When self love is there - you are in control of yourself, your decisions, your aspirations and your beliefs. With self love, making decisions for yourself comes from a place of power instead of from a place of lack.
Just imagine waking up everyday, and having faith that you are doing what’s best for you and knowing that the people in your life are there for your highest good. Visualize looking in the mirror so happy that it’s you in the reflection and knowing with confidence that there is no one else you’d rather be. That’s a powerful place to exist.
Now, loving yourself and being grateful for who and what you are does not mean that you don’t have aspirations. It just means you are the one that decides what those aspirations are. When you love yourself, it’s beyond looks or weight or anything like that. This is about knowing you are a manifestation of the Creator’s love and loving the uniqueness that is you!
I don’t know about you, but I definitely want to live in a world where everyone knows and loves themselves. I want people to be wholly them - that’s beautiful and magical. When you love yourself - guilt, shame and regrets don’t have a seat at the table and are replaced with understanding, compassion and forgiveness. Trust they make for a much better company.
Long story short, embrace self love. It’s truly transformative. Gone are the days of someone crowning you - we adjust our own crowns around here. You are beyond worthy of love. You are LOVE and it all starts with you.
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