I took to social media this past week and asked my peers what they wanted me to right about. All of them seemed to want me to write about something that is so incredibly important to me. Self Love. Aside from asking that what to write about, I wanted their personal input, I wanted to know what they thought about self-love. Why it was so important to them that I write about it, and why it was important that we all practice self-love, in their eyes.

Here is what I got back from:

“When you love and accept yourself, growth is possible - flowers grow in rich soil. The soil is your mind, make your mind rich. Be kind to yourself, choose your thoughts carefully and softly, do not be mean or harsh to yourself. You are not going to feel comfortable growing within yourself, expressing yourself.” Vanessa C. Rodriguez.

And when I continued asking others why self-love is so important they proceeded to say the same things. That it is necessary to love yourself in order to love others, that you will learn to accept yourself and stop finding reasons to doubt the person that you are. They said things like how self-love is the root of all other happiness in other parts of your life and so forth.

Seeing how my peers responded about self-love left me under the impression that everyone knew why it was so important. However, I must remind myself that is not the case. After writing an entire book on how to love the person that you are I learned one thing. Everyone finds different ways to learn that they must love themselves, but at the end of the day it is the same end goal. We must learn to do such thing because without loving ourselves we are allowing ourselves to be filled with doubt and the inability to see how far our potential can actually take us.

When you do not love yourself, you are allowing others the opportunity to reek havoc on your life, and create an imbalance that will take longer to restore. With self-love you are allowing yourself to be in the right mindset to live a happy and successful life, you are never putting yourself in the position to have a blockade because of doubt and not believing who you are. After putting on the brakes, and stopping outside sources from interfering how you feel about who you are you can move forward. With that you then, make healthy lifestyle choices. You love yourself enough to try, to pursue an opportunity, remove yourself from detrimental forms of relationships - the love you have for yourself allows you to make choice that are not only beneficial but healthy mentally and even physically.” -Kassandra C. Lopez

It sounds repetitive and redundant, but it is vital. There are so many of our peers and friends that are not practicing self-love because they feel like loving themselves is the equivalent to feeding the ego. As incorrect as that may be there are also others who are under the impression that the influence others have on your life is more important than how you feel about yourself.

“When you do not love yourself, it leaves a void that cannot be filled by anything or anyone besides yourself. You will spend your life looking for in it other people and places but it will never compare to the love you can give yourself,” said Kassandra C. Lopez, “once you give yourself that love, you have a power that no one can take from you. you can be a whole all by yourself and you can be a light to others as well as a guide if need be.”

At the end of the day, you need you before you need anyone else. You need to be comfortable with your own skin before any growth and progress can be made, with yourself and your interaction with so many others. It was shared to me, “That self-love is being comfortable in your skin, and enough in your abilities to always push through. Without it, you will never be in the right state of mind to do much else. Fix the inside before you go fixing something else.”