Self love will look different, sound different, taste different, etc. to different people. Self love means by the very definition is about loving yourself. The broadest definition of self-love is learning how to care for you. Learning what you need and how much you need. Lastly being okay to not limit how often you love on yourself. How you achieve the goal will be the unique marker for each individual person.
If you are in a relationship and you are finding that the person that YOU selected isn’t loving on you the way that you want; do some things about it. For instance, if self-love looks like you taking some me time, that’s what you need to do. In relationships we all need our own time but when you don’t have enough self love and aren’t being active in your self love, the second your mate isn’t doing what he or she needs you get upset. What you haven’t recognized is that you may not have loved on yourself and therefore what you lack isn’t love from an outside source but from yourself. Your personal love cup is empty.
This is a new journey that I am taking. When you start to love yourself even the mundane everyday interactions that you tolerated before will cause your eyes to open. You start setting limits on how much time you are in one place because you see that the person or location no longer serves you. This is the by-product of loving you. Our society always seems to put more on an emphasis on what others do, how they do, and when but not enough on what you require, how often, and when. Change the way you look at yourself.
When you self-love you can see your flaws, work towards making them better, but still embrace them. Self love isn’t always a come to Jesus moment either. Self love also involves making some drastic changes and changes that sting and hurt in the beginning. For instance, how can you love on you but don’t care what you consume? These type of bad habits have to stop when you love on you more. Tap into what YOU need and not what people have set limitations for what THEY think you need. If a part of you needs to finish school so that can be a goal that you cross off for you, than do that.
I was walking in the store this morning. I heard a woman tell the cashier how her husband doesn’t like it when she reads. First thing that came to mind was what in the unholy hell is that? How can a man tell his wife that he doesn’t like her reading. Then I stopped because I have no idea what is going on in their home, if it’s a cultural thing, or if she really is in an unsafe environment. What I did hear is that she said that what he wanted didn’t stop her. The woman gets up early almost an hour before he does and reads anyway in another room.
She takes books to her job and uses her lunch time. She uses her E-reader to read and he thinks she is web surfing. I could go in on her oppressed like home, but she did something about it that made her happy in spite of the environment she was in. What about you who aren’t living in an oppressed environment. Are you willing to get up early, stay up late, change your schedule, make yourself temporarily uncomfortable to give YOU what you need? I mean apart of the process of self-love is learning how to tune out the negative thoughts that come from you and those who you seem to want approval from.
Self love should be the first love you master and re-master over and over again. This will take loveless relationships and end them fast. You can’t dip yourself in love and allow someone to give you less than what you give yourself. Maybe you need to re-check your self-love meter. If you compromise on you than don’t go off on someone else who does what you allow them and you to do to yourself. Have you ever been asked what makes you happy but don’t have an answer to give? I am not talking about winning the lottery. I am talking about the type of things that make you happy that money can’t buy yet when asked you go blank.
Your self love bank is empty and you need a refill. What makes you happy? Passions? What makes you at peace when the world is going to hell in a handbag? I am going to clue you in even as a wife and mom although I love my titles, it’s going to have to be more than changing some diapers and loving on my husband to make me happy. Relationships change and kids grow. Simply and only being caught up in either title will leave my self love meter empty. Why do you think the divorce rate is high when couples get into the empty nest phase. One they may have not put in enough energy in their relationships or themselves. However it rolls out to be, self love is the MOST important love you will ever encounter.
