Loving yourself is not just peaches and bath bombs. It's more than pampering and treating yourself with nice things.
Although rewarding yourself is just as important as the ugly side of expressing self-appreciation, there's more to what is usually talked about.
It's about being kind to yourself, even when you want to beat yourself up. For not passing that test. For saying something you didn't necessarily mean. For not having the perfect body. For not making enough money. For not being where you expected to be.
The point is, the list can go on and it CAN destroy you if you choose to be the victim. It's important to support yourself during your lows and celebrate yourself when you're at your best.
Loving yourself can be a train wreck, where you meet all of the many passengers and your many personalities. The voices in your head that constrain you from stepping outside of your comfort zone to bigger and better opportunities.
There will be many stops during this long and eventful ride. Some may be eventful, where you don't really have to reflect too much. But some moments will bring you to your knees, making you question if your life is really worth the aggravation.
What is your purpose? How much are you really worth?
Self-love is convincing yourself that your journey is important and that you need to remain patient to see the results.
Truth is, falling in love with yourself can take some time and energy. A lot of it.
But that's not the hardest part.
STAYING in love with yourself is when many find to be the most perplexing. It is literally having a relationship with yourself. You need to keep showing yourself that you care.
Showing yourself that you matter also entails that you remove yourself from those that no longer serve you in your growing process. That means you need to be around those that will support and adore you without any costs.
Any self-doubts that you have need to be tamed. If it goes uncontrolled, there will be days that you will battle with your inner demons until you reach rock bottom. But sometimes, that's the only way for you to really see how much strength you have.
Because we live in a world where social media is, most of the time, used for the wrong reasons, it can be easy to distract yourself from obtaining happiness. It's important to not compare yourself to everyone else. That would be self-sabotage.
The mind is a wondrous thing. Full of monstrous thoughts, yet full of power and imagination that can fuel any creation.
From experience, I found that by understanding and accepting myself through ALL of my many revolutions is key. A similar instance would be like raising a child. If you were given the chance to fast forward to the part where they're all grown up, would you do so?
If you chose yes, you would've missed out on all of the lessons that you were supposed to have learned. You would've skipped all of the memories that led up to the point where you realized that all of that hard work was worth it in the end. You wouldn't be able to be genuinely proud.
You need to love them with patience, even when they're on their worst behavior. Like how you should handle yourself.
Do you know that saying, "It's not about the destination, it's about the journey."? Well, that applies to self-love.
You need to figure out what it will take to make yourself a home. You need to discover what brings you peace because you will need to dip into that inner place when things get tough. You need to learn what will help you cope with the mundane and what will feed your body, mind, and soul.
There is no specific time length as to when you'll reach complete peace with yourself. It might even take most of your life to figure it out and that's perfectly fine, so to say the least, try to lay back and enjoy the ride while you can.
