How is your self-love journey going?
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Mine has been a winding road with a particularly rough patch through my twenties.
I am happy to report that my love of self is stronger now than it has ever been.
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✨Self-Love: A state of appreciation for oneself. An appreciation of one’s own worth or virtue. A dynamic state that grows as we perform actions that prioritize our well-being.
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➡️I have learned that my self-love grows the more I practice self-awareness, self-acceptance, self-respect, and self-compassion.
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For a long time, I struggled with feeling like I needed to earn love, even self-love. I felt like I couldn’t fully love myself until I got it all right.
➡️I was stuck in a cycle of pleasing, performing, and perfecting.
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I based a big part of my self-love on other people’s evaluations of me, and on the love and respect I received from others.
➡️I learned the hard way that it is a foundation of self-love and self-respect that sets us up to better receive love and respect from others.
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In my early twenties, I was in a significant relationship that I really poured myself into. After the initial excitement, my significant other checked out of the relationship emotionally, and said some irreversibly damaging things about my personality and my body.
As I struggled to process the pain and confusion and longed for attention and affection, I acted out in ways that were not in alignment with the person I was and wanted to be. I hurt myself and others in the process.
➡️I learned a lot, and did a lot of work in the areas of cultivating self-love and prioritizing well-being. I came out of the darkness of that time with a much stronger sense of self-awareness and self-love.
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➡️Of course, I am still doing my work in these areas. I think this is a life-long process. Work worth doing.
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❤️I wish you the best on your journey of self-love.
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