Self Love

It took me years to understand that order to love someone fully, you must first love yourself.

At first, I thought that meant being selfish and not putting others first - it's a habit of mine I adopted while growing up, thinking that loving others first was most important.

Both my parents felt the need to love and give whatever they needed or desired. However, it was the reserve with me, their daughter. It was as though I had to work for their love and time. I was dumbfounded by this behavior, because I had friends whose parents seemed to always put their family first, making their children a priority.

For me, as I grew older it almost predisposed me to loving those who just didn’t seem to prioritize their love for me back.

Why, do we want to waste time chasing someone who really has no desire to love us back?

Is it our ego, that doesn’t allow us to seek a full love that makes us feel loved unconditionally, because maybe we feel we don’t deserve it?

We all love the hunt and to chase after what we cannot have. There’s something incredibly desirable and intriguing about something that seems unattainable. But at what point to we stop allowing ourselves to be pushed away or put at the end of the list of someone else’s priorities when it comes to love?

I personally was sick of feeling resentful, bitter, sad and angry for not wanting more for myself and expecting it.

After 3 years of soul searching for that dream of “unconditional love”. I reflected upon this want, realizing when I was asked, that I didn’t really even know what unconditional love truly meant. Surely that’s the million-dollar question! But the concept without knowing it’s full meaning sure sounded good haha!

I had never had anyone love me unconditionally until I had those 3 years to find the real me and learn to unconditional love myself. I learned I could love myself without expectations and then to love others the same. Without the need feeling I had to save everyone, buy my friends whatever they wanted and/or needed so that maybe they would love me back because of fulfilled their expectations.

I those few years alone really learning to loving my own company, finding peace in my life, and learning to live a full life with conditions. I nurtured laughter and happiness, letting my self love blossom and washing away years of tears that were associated to always feeling like I never measured up, and had to give more to others for them to love me wholly.

This opened such a valley of dreams and hopes I knew I could have without feeling the need to have to earn it. I truly loved myself and knew I was ready to give and receive that same unconditional love to and from someone else.

Now, I am living on cloud nine, having found self love and a prince charming to love and return that love unconditionally.

Let’s learn to love ourselves first so we can love others unconditionally. It takes work, reflection and soul searching, but what seems imperceptible can so easily come to you once you have learned to firmly ground yourself and commit to loving yourself without conditions.