Self-love is the most important thing to acquire in life. Loving who you are is not a quality—it is a way of life. It’s definitely not an easy lifestyle to follow, but once it’s learned how to carry out in each and every situation, you will ultimately not only love yourself but your life and everything about it.

When a lot of people think of self-love, they think of the campaign that we have all heard called “body positivity.” I just want to touch on the reality that self-love is so much more than just loving your body. This slogan about being positive about your body image is an amazing and uplifting message, but I want to further acknowledge that self-love is loving the entirety of your being: mind, body, and soul. Love yourself as a whole.

Learn to love everything about who you are before you can start loving someone else because, in the end, the closest person to yourself is yourself. The only person you can fully count on is the person that is constantly in your own mind. So instead of learning to fall in love with someone else at first, learn to fall in love with who you are.

Think of loving yourself as marrying yourself; walking yourself down the aisle. Just as your spouse would be there for you, be there for yourself. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and health, and not even death do you part. Love the way your skin isn’t perfect, your hips are a little too wide, the mistakes you make, your bad procrastination habits, how you eat a little too much cake, how you have hurt other people, lost friends, your panic attacks; everything.

Always, no matter what, be there for yourself and push yourself to be the best version of yourself that you can be, because you are capable of things that are unimaginable, which you and only you can believe.

Once you learn to take this on as your permanent lifestyle, your life will automatically become so much lighter and happier, I guarantee. You won’t care about anything that anyone else has to say about you because all that matters is the way you view yourself and how happiness should control your days.

I am not saying that any of this is easy, this is something that is struggled with every single day. But maybe that’s the point. Love yourself through the heartbreak and struggle of figuring out who you are meant to be.

Just remember, that you can do it and you are worth every second of the life that you live.