You are the priority in your life. How you love you, how you see you, how you treat you is going to set the stage and issue the invitation that will draw other people in to love you.
— Iyanla Vanzant

One of the hardest things that we must learn to do throughout our lives is the one thing that should come easiest: self love.

Especially in today's society, we as humans are given so many "standards" such as the way we dress or look, or even who we are as a person or how we act, that we believe we should live up to. Even though most of these standards are extreme or ridiculous, most of us will find ourselves beating ourselves up because we cannot meet them. We forget how important it is for us to love ourselves and we begin to hate who we are or what we look like.

Besides the standards that are set in the world around us, we also begin to let others' opinions of us depict our own thoughts on ourselves. People are putting down one another all the time. And as much as we say it doesn't bother us, words really do stick like glue. One person can say one negative thing about you, and you'll hate that part about you. It's sad, but it's just human nature.

Often times we are own worst enemy. We look at ourselves with hatred or anger when we should be giving ourselves love. When we are constantly negative towards ourselves, we set the tone for how those around will treat us.

If you're constantly downing yourself, or showing little to no respect for yourself, it shows others that you're an easy target for them to take out their own insecurities on. Again, it's sad, but it's how our world works.

Until you love yourself the way you need, no one else will ever be able to give you the love you deserve.

Learning self-love is not an easy process. And self-love does not mean that you're confident and happy with yourself 24/7. But it does feel good.

Self-love is being content within your own skin. Yeah, maybe there still will be certain things that you would change about yourself, but it's all about loving yourself fully, flaws and all.