Embracing self love
You are worthy of love
and you owe yourself, to love yourself.
Have you ever sat down and thought to yourself, what do I like about me? What I don’t like? What do I like to do? Don’t like to do? Have you ever sat down with yourself and truly examined yourself and assess how much your truly love yourself?
If you put yourself in an empty room, would you be content and satisfied with your existence?
Leviticus 19:18: "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD".
Matthew 22:39: "And the second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'".
How often do we get so involved with loving others before we make the attempt to love ourselves?
I’m 28 years old currently and I’ve realized that I have only been loving myself for 5 years. What was I do the rest of those 23 years? Idk; but what I can tell you is this…at age 23, I started to spend time with myself, intentionally. At 23 I was in graduate school at East Carolina University, actively participating in my own individual therapy, and building my community in my new hometown.
Here are some tips/key points with discovering your self-love!
Be intentional with dating you. Keep the focus on YOU and YOU only.
A lot of times we fill compelled to do things with other people to feed our social battery. Are you really filling your social battery or are you ignoring the fact that you don’t like being alone or don’t like the person (you) you’re alone with?
Use this time to discover a new you. Besides you’re just starting to spend time with yourself. Create the life you want yourself to walk into.
What are your desires? What are your hobbies? What are your non-negotiables? How do you compromise? How do you handle conflict? Think of all the things you would ask getting to know someone and ask yourself these things.
Spend time with yourself daily.
If you don’t really like yourself, you’ll avoid yourself at all costs. Start small. Start with spending at least 5 minutes with yourself. Maybe this is the time to examine what it is that you don’t like about you, to help counteract your next action with intentionality.
Think back to your childhood.
What made your inner child happy? Rediscover that happiness. At 28, I have a deep love for coloring books and reading. It literally brings me calmness.
Go to therapy.
Find a therapist that can help you, discover you. It takes a lot of work and discipline to get to know you and fall in love with you. Embrace it.
You are the only person who will ever spend as much time with yourself than anyone will spend with you or you will spend with anyone else. Take time to get to know the person who is going to be with you the long-term throughout your life.
So. Tell me. What is it that you love about yourself? If you can’t answer this, it’s time to hop on the self-love and self-discovery journey. You owe it to you. People will fail you. So YOU don’t need to fail YOU too.
