So, I don’t Love Me, Quite Yet.
It’s valentine’s day. A day when we women receive roses or chocolate or teddy bears, or great conversation through a romantic dinner. It’s a day for receiving and giving love, and restaurants and stores make the most of the romantic couple. It’s a day to celebrate love and all the images and fantasies it conjures. but for some, that’s all it is. We know what love should feel like; we have seen it on TV, we have heard others talk about it, we have had someone try to show it to us… but we have not quite felt it. The reason is simple.
We don't really love ourselves, quite yet
So let’s talk about that, since the person to fall in love with way past valentine’s day, the one that truly matters, is the person in the mirror.
Confession time: I’ve had times when i’ve not loved myself very much. That feeling has been strongest or lasted longest when the “bad” side of me has won over the “good” side of me, or when I’ve dwelt more on the bad than the good. The bad and good is as I’ve defined it.
The bad side wins when I do things I promised time and time again I’d stop, say things that are not so nice, or even gone against values I know to be wrong. In other words I might hurt someone intentionally through word or deed or go low when I should go high. Either way I come face to face with character flaws I wish to God didn’t exist but for some reason came with the design that is my humanity. It hurts and is borderline depressing because:
There's something in us that wants to be perfect
That’s the honest truth. We might not ever word it quite that way but many of the struggles we have with ourselves is because we cannot accept we aren’t quite perfectly put together. We ask ourselves:
- Why did I repeat that failure?
- Why did I say that when I knew it would hurt?
- Why did I think that thought?
- Why can’t I overcome it?
- Why can’t I be good enough at that?
So, we might be receiving all the love someone else can give, but at the end of the day we don’t feel happy because we don’t love ourselves…and that’s a problem.
I’m going to break it down very, very simply to you, and to myself. I think most elderly people will tell us the same thing. Leave yourself be.
Now it’s not a license to go be a jerk or let yourself be less than you can be, but it is saying, be gracious to yourself. You are a human being and as long as you are doing your best that’s all you really can do.
Let me let you into a little secret. No matter how deeply you try, how greatly you strive, you will let yourself and someone down. Learn to get up and keep moving.
Another secret: Everyone has an impediment. Everyone. On. Planet. Earth. Some have simply found peace by resting in what they can change and leaving the rest to God.
So it’s not going to be a long drawn out conversation but i’ll simply say this. At some point, just like I did, you must come to accept yourself with all the “good” and “bad” and stop striving. You must decide to either spend your energy loving yourself, which will give you more energy to create life for your dream and purpose, or you can spend it striving to change to someone else which causes stress and pain that saps the the life out of purpose.
You are going to have to make that choice when you get tired of not loving you.
So take a look in the mirror and love what looks back at you. Really look at it. It’s going to be with you for a very, very, long time. Get to know this person. Not what you hope it is, or what you want it to be, but what it really is. Maybe if you accept it, love it, care for it, it will be a great companion and take you places you can only imagine. God Bless.
