Let me ask you this “do you truly love yourself?” If you answered yes then that’s great because not everyone is as fortunate as you are. Another question I have is “do you believe that you are lovable?” Maybe you’ve never asked yourself that question or you ask yourself that all the time. Well whether you believe it or not, you are lovable, no matter what anyone says or does.
Someone told me once that I didn’t love myself. It was not an easy thing to hear but upon reflection I realized that they were right. How could I love myself and treat myself the way I was treating myself. How could I love myself and allow other people to treat me the way they did.
For me, once I realized I didn’t love myself, I saw it as a wake up call and made a conscious decision to love myself. My belief that God loves me has also helped with that. Knowing that God loves me despite all my faults or any part of my body that I think needs work or anything that I’ve ever done, makes me know without a doubt that I am lovable. So no matter what anyone says about me or if someone were to not love me I know I am lovable because God says so and I say so.
To be able to be part of a relationship that has a chance of lasting, you have to love yourself. If you don’t then you’re going to expect that love from someone else and that just puts too much pressure on another human being. How you feel about yourself should not depend on other people because if those people change their minds, you’re left suffering the results. That’s why heartbreak hurts so much. It makes you question whether you are lovable or if anyone will ever love you again.
Yes it’s great that your partner, your parents, your family or your friends love you but you should love yourself more than they love you so that even if you feel like they don’t love you or they stop loving you, you know you are still lovable. Yes you’ve done things you’re not proud of or people have hurt you in unimaginable ways, forgive yourself and them because only then will you be able to truly love yourself.
I’m not telling you something I haven’t gone through or continue to go through. I sometimes still have to remind myself that if I loved myself I wouldn’t be allowing this in my life. If you don’t love yourself, you owe it to yourself to make a conscious decision to start doing so.
If ever there was a simple book with a strong message, Love yourself like your life depends on it by Kamal Ravikant is it. It’s very short and reader friendly. It came as a breath of fresh air and helped in my journey to loving myself that I was already on and continue to be on. In it Kamal details how loving himself transformed his life. If you’re asking yourself where do I even begin? How do I start to love myself? Kamal’s book will help you with that. It most certainly helped me.
Even though I am not a parent yet, I would just like to say to anyone reading this who is a parent, tell your children, especially girls, you love them. Tell them that they are lovable as they are. This will make a difference when they are older because if they know they are lovable they won’t try to find it outside of themselves. It will save them years of therapy and thinking “I must be lovable because my boyfriend loves me”.
