Never travel without a journal. Always keep track of your thoughts, hopes and dreams.

This past weekend I attended a conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This said conference is called SEPC, which stands for South Eastern Panhellenic Conference. Which in English means a bunch of sorority women attending workshops, speakers, general session, and so on and so forth. I know what you’re thinking, why? Hundreds of women. Vendors. Recruitment. T-shirts. Speakers. General sessions. It’s all so overwhelming.

But when you take a step back, you realize you are all there for the same reasons; to better yourself, to better your school, and to better your organization.

I can’t speak on behalf of everyone at this conference but I can speak for myself when I say I have a lot I need to work on. I’m not perfect. I’m actually far from it. I have insecurities. I have faults. I make mistakes. But more importantly, I am not the only one. My last post was “A word to the wise…” and yes, I gave some great advice, but I need to practice what I preach.

I am not nearly as confident as I should be. In all honesty,if I treated people the way I treat myself I would have no friends. This weekend I listened to so many beautiful women who spoke about how imperative it is to accept yourself, and that’s the first step to having heathy relationships.

Something that was said which really resinated with me was, “First apologize to yourself, then you’ll learn to thank yourself, and one day, when you are ready, you’ll love yourself.”

That could not hold more truth. You can’t love yourself one day to the next, love takes time.

Love is an action. It’s accepting yourself, flaws and all. It’s forgiving yourself for all the awful things you believe(d) about yourself. The most important piece of advice I learned all weekend was to accept reality. Accept that you can’t help people who don’t want to help themselves. You can’t please everyone. People will stop talking to you, as well as stop caring about you. It will be okay. People will extract themselves out of your life. And it’s not your fault. Nothing is wrong with you. If someone is negative, or has a bad attitude, it’s their problem. It has nothing to do with you. You need to focus on yourself.

“You can lead someone to the watering hole, but you can not force them to drink the water.”

Accept it. My newest project is to treat myself the same way I treat others. It’s not healthy to be so critical.

I am who I am.

I mean, there is always room for improvement, but for now I need to work on acceptance.