Love starts with you

This post is one that has been quite challenging for me to write. How do you begin to talk about love as if you have all the answers. I certainly don’t pretend to. All I know about love, I have learnt in my own journey to be loved and to love to the best of my ability. It took me a long time to come to the realisation that in order to be loved, you have to first love yourself.

I don’t mean in the arrogant way where you get dressed and you take a selfie and you post it for the world to see how amazing you are. I don’t mean the kind of love where we pretend we are some sort of gift to mankind. I mean real love. The kind of love where you believe in yourself and you don’t allow anyone to take that away from you. The kind of love where you accept yourself, you accept that you aren’t perfect in spite of your flaws but because of them. Your flaws are what makes you an individual and you need to stop bashing yourself and just learn to embrace who you are.

We aren’t all born knowing how to love ourselves. We compare ourselves to other people. We long for what they have; straighter hair, thinner bodies, nicer clothes, faster cars, more money, more successful careers. We are constantly putting ourselves down. We look at ourselves with resentment. If only I could be richer, thinner, better, happier, more successful. We rarely feel content with what we truly have and that’s the main problem. How can we be happy if we aren’t accepting of ourselves. Why is it, that we are more okay with the flaws of others than our own imperfections?

At some point we need to take a moment to ask ourselves what truly makes us happy and how we can get there without trying to be like someone else. We have to decide what it is that we want out of life and how we can get there without feeling like a failure. I know I’ve said this before in this post but in case you didn’t read it or didn’t believe it, there is nothing wrong with failing and it doesn’t make us a failure. If you need a little reminder about how to believe in yourself then read this post.

The truth is, everyone wants to be loved but very few of us look in the mirror and realise that love has to begin with ourselves. How can you expect someone else to love you when you haven’t learnt to love yourself?

So my challenge to you is this. Keep a diary of all the positive things about yourself. Things you know, things people tell you, even the things your mother tells you that you never believe. Love yourself and the love from others will follow.