Self Love is Freedom.
Put your oxygen mask on first. It’s that simple. Self love is just understanding that you CANNOT pour from an empty cup. You cannot assist or change the world without the energy within yourself. You cannot bear fruit from a barren tree. There’s so many ways to just say LOVE YOURSELF FIRST! But people do not self love, because it wasn’t taught to them. So let’s have a lesson!
I love love love looking at flowers. I’m not big on receiving them. I’m not big on planting them, watering them, or even actually keeping them alive. But I love to look. And I think about that sometimes when it comes to me loving myself. I love the way I look sometimes, but am I willing to put in the work to maintain that beauty. Not just physical beauty. But my inner beauty. Am I willing to water myself, give myself sun, plant myself into the right soil? We are so focused on the outside world and what everybody is doing or not doing. We do not spend enough time caring for ourselves. Who is really maintaining the love and beauty that already exists in us? Not many. We are just letting it die, day by day. We complain about how evil and horrible this world we live in is. We are saddened by the shootings, the injustice, the discrimination, and all the hate in this world. It exists because majority of people do not understand the importance of self love. If we all loved ourself why would there be a reason to hate? Why would we cause others pain? Why would we even bother to bring someone down? We wouldn’t. Humans as a collective just struggle with the idea of being free. Self love is freedom. Self love is the escape from the continuous cycle of disappointment. You cannot live out your purpose if you do not know yourself fully. And you get to know yourself fully by learning what you want, what you like, what you dream to be. When you say you love your friends, or your partner, or your family you say that because you know them. You know them enough to love them. You love them by spending time with them, listening to them, learning them, understanding what makes them smile and what pisses them off. Why can’t we treat ourselves like that? Why can’t we have self dialogue with ourselves about how are we feeling today? What do we need prayer for today? How is my body feeling and what can I do to help? We pay so much attention to the external world and to external relationships that we neglect our inner world. You cannot be free unless you are connected to yourself. When you wake up and just love who you are, that is true freedom. You love even the things you need to work on, you love who you’re growing into, you just love your whole being. I’ll break it down in the steps that I feel are necessary to flow into the shift of being in love with yourself:
⚫️ BE YOU
STOP caring about what anyone thinks about you. We crave perfection because we want others to notice it. Stop it! We cannot fully accept who we are if we are always worried about others accepting who we are. You can pretend all you want and stay unhappy. You know how you feel before you lay your head down. You know how you feel when you wake up in the morning. That’s all that matters is how you feel. Others feelings will never validate you. Validate yourself.
⚫️ BE ALONE SOMETIMES
Spend time with YOU. If you can’t think of anything that makes you happy outside of others, there’s an issue. You have to love to spend time with just yourself. Spoil yourself. Understand what your weaknesses are and work on them. Understand what your strengths are and have tunnel vision and flourish in that. Know your lane and master it. If everyone knew who they truly were, we all would be living out our purpose and fulfilling our dreams. But we stay in jobs and lifestyles that don’t match up with who we truly are because we don’t take the time to be attentive to our souls. We rather do what others tells us to do, rather than truly follow what’s been tugging us in a different direction our whole lives. Being alone sometimes is extremely healthy, it is the only way to truly know why you are here on this planet. Others’ voices will always cloud your purpose. Your intuition will always lead you in the right direction. But only through stillness is how you hear it. So cultivate self love by just being still more and being in the present moment.
⚫️ LET SHIT GO
Deal with your past and HEAL. How can we ever love ourselves if we do not forgive ourselves? Things have happened in the past whether it is in our control or not, they happened. It needs to be confronted and released to move towards self love. Yes I said confronted. Look at it. Stare at the pain, find the roots of the trauma, and then let it go. Running from your own issues is just denying it. Self love is not denial. Self love is full acceptance of all things that have happened in your life. And all things happened for your growth. Not for your downfall.
⚫️ BE AWARE OF THE WORDS YOU SPEAK
Speak positivity. Speak life. Speak love into yourself. If you wouldn’t tell someone you love they aren’t good enough, they won’t ever be successful, they can’t do this or they can’t do that, then don’t tell it to yourself. I can honestly say I am so much sweeter and nicer to others than I am myself. Which is never okay. As soon as that inner negative chatter starts, kill it. Straight murder anything and everything that doesn’t uplift you. Self love is affirming all the great things that you deserve. It is not bratty, it is not entitlement, it is not selfishness. Self love is speaking that love into your life so you can pour into others and not feel depleted after. Our words are SO powerful. So if you keep speaking anti love, you will feel that. If you keep speaking defeat, you will feel that. Whatever you speak, it is then manifested. So if you want to love yourself a little more today. Speak sweet little nothings into your own ear. You don’t need someone to do that for you. You don’t need someone to praise you and shower you with adoration. Drench yourself in that!
⚫️ SAY YES TO YOURSELF
Learn to say NO! Others aren’t always the best at discerning what’s best for you. But you are. Say yes to yourself more. People are afraid to say no because they don’t want to be perceived as selfish or mean. If you truly feel like your mind, body and soul don’t want to do it, don’t do it. The more self love you possess the easier it will become. You will know what you are willing to deal with, willing to help with, and where you are willing to go. You are in control of your life. You have full autonomy of what you will and won’t allow into your space. Saying no protects your energy. If you say yes ALL the time, you’re giving energy away and allowing possible bad energy to creep in. Guard yourself!
⚫️ KNOW WHERE YOU COME FROM
Lastly I think the most important part is to love your Creator. Everybody has their own definitions of how we got here on this planet and why we are here. I find it very difficult to love myself if I can’t love the Creator that created me. Someone else gave me this brilliant mind. Someone else planted these talents and gifts within me. Someone else gave me a purpose and made this big puzzle of life. I’m just one puzzle piece. When I realize that. A lot of pressure comes off of me. I don’t have to be so perfect because I didn’t create myself. I’m just learning myself. A me already existed before I even existed so I just need to discover that me every single day. It seems confusing at first but when you truly sit and think about it, there is this inner power in all of us that is just pure love. Society hardens us and our experiences make us dark. But we are purely love. If we love that inner power, then we love ourselves. Seems so easy right? If I love my Creator and I am a spark of that Creator, then essentially I love myself. You can’t love yourself without knowing where you came from. You can’t be free if you don’t know you are in bondage. Not knowing where you come from is definitely a way to stay in bondage. You are lost with a billion questions of why even love myself, why am I even here? You are here to love. Love the Universe, love yourself, love others. That simple. Everybody is so unique that their love will change the world different than my love will. And my love will change the world differently than the next person. But that’s the beautiful part. We are all loving ourselves so we can have a chance to love the world better. When you self love, there is no external hate. If there is no external hate, there can be true peace in this world. But it takes ALL of us to love ourselves to ever get to that. Guess that’s what they mean by Heaven. A place overflowing with self love.
⚫️ BE FREE ⚫️