Loving YOU Ain’t Easy

“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.” – Lucille Ball

Everyone tells us to love ourselves, but not one person actually tells us how to do so. People love (pun intended) to throw around cliché sayings that sound good, but the reality is they will have very little impact without instruction. We must know why it’s important to do whatever someone is suggesting no matter what it is, and more importantly, how.

In all honesty, I have found loving myself to be extremely challenging throughout the years. This isn’t to say that I don’t love myself; it’s just not as cut and dry as people −mainly those who throw around cliché’s with very little context−make it seem.

Loving yourself takes constant work. It takes understanding that doing so isn’t just important for someone else to love you, but for you to joyously exist on this planet. It’s gritty, nasty, painful and oddly uncomfortable. In fact, everyone claims to love who they are, but many have not invested the time, energy and/or effort to feel what they’re proclaiming.

Loving self is a combination of accepting who you are, but still striving to be the best version of you. It is coming to grips with the fact that you may not be the person you imagined as a kid growing up. It’s understanding that who you are in this exact moment is exactly who and where you need to be despite the shitty feelings you may be experiencing.

Loving yourself isn’t complacency. It is recognizing that everyone’s journey is different, and no matter how much you may compare your life to other people, it will never be their’s because it isn’t meant to be.

In order to truly love yourself, you must be bold, courageous, and unapologetic of who you are. In other words, you must choose to walk alone when others don’t, and stand up for what you believe in despite what the world is screaming in your ear.

When you love yourself you’ll know, because when you say it, you’ll mean it.