I couldn’t let this holiday pass without a post about love. I am one of the biggest saps you will ever meet. I cry at the drop of a hat, tear up during touching commercials, and I absolutely love romance and all that it entails. And even though this day has become about giving gifts and cards etc. I still love it. (I am a greeting card writer after all so it behooves me to be a bit sentimental.)
With that said I want to touch on something that doesn’t get talked about much, especially around this time of year and that is self-love.
All too often many of the greatest givers (myself included) have a tendency to forget or in some cases avoid all together the idea of loving ourselves. It has been seen by some to be a narcissistic way of living if we tend to our own needs or recognize the gifts we truly have. It has been all too common to downplay our strengths and focus on our weaknesses all while giving to and doing for others. Sometimes we see that our needs aren’t as important as the needs of our child, partner, employer, or family and we disconnect entirely from what we want and need in order to give back to ourselves. It is the lack of balance in loving another and loving ourselves that can cause frustration, fatigue, and resentment.
Is self-love a selfish act? In my opinion it is not. It is a necessity in order to effectively love another. I know this because it has been a struggle of my own, one of which I have been working on for a while now and is one I believe we could all do a little more of. Please don’t confuse self-love with boasting, narcissism, and the ego because it is far from that.
To me, self-love is accepting all of your being for who you are flaws and all and loving the person you were, the person you are, and who you have yet to become. It’s not an easy task to do, but as we peel back the layers of ourselves and let them fall away, we uncover our truest selves…human beings full of love, inspiration, power, strength, and beauty.
How does this apply to accomplishing your dreams and goals? I believe the more we love ourselves and accept ourselves for who we truly are, we view our dreams and goals in a new light. Instead of not feeling good enough or worthy enough of our amazing gifts, we accept them graciously as they manifest. So, today I ask you to take a moment and remind yourself that you are worthy of all of the goodness the Universe can give you, but first you must believe you are.
With that I will leave you with an inspirational quote I found. May you always know you are worthy of your dreams.
Enjoy your Valentine’s Day!
“You can be the most beautiful person in the world and everybody sees light and rainbows when they look at you, but if you yourself don’t know it, all of that doesn’t even matter. Every second that you spend on doubting your worth, every moment that you use to criticize yourself; is a second of your life wasted, is a moment of your life thrown away. It’s not like you have forever, so don’t waste any of your seconds, don’t throw even one of your moments away.”
― C. JoyBell C.
If we do not truly start to love ourselves, how do we love another? Self Love is important, for all too often we neglect ourselves, and we keep searching for that someone or something to fill that space in our hearts.. When we Truly Love our inner being our true selves that space is filled because we feel complete… The answers to many questions lays within each of us… Once we open up our hearts and let ourselves in to heal our wounds, for often we are harsh upon ourselves as we can harbour guilt, regret, grudges, and unworthiness, Once we truly Love ourselves, these feelings no longer have any room within…..
A great Post And wishing you a Happy Valentines Day 🙂
Sue,
I completely agree with you. Often I know in my head that self love is important, yet sometimes in practice I forget that. I hope you had a lovely Valentines Day as well!