Love Yourself First


Self love. A phrase that, I've found, attracts a lot of negative energy. Gets dem backs up. Some people have straight up told me that the idea of practising self love is 'hippy shit' and they don't need it. Others have told me that they find it incredibly narcissistic.

What a load of bollocks.

How you treat yourself sets the standard for how everyone else should treat you.
Self love isn't about walking around thinking you're better than everyone else. Self love isn't treating other people like they're beneath you. That kind of behaviour is incredibly narcissistic and makes you a bit of a prick. Self love is about knowing who you are, loving who you are and knowing what you deserve in this world.

My first step towards self love was accepting my past. It meant accepting that I've let the wrong kind of people into my life. I needed time to be alone with my thoughts and dissect every relationship I've had, to understand why I ended up hurt. These people did not see my worth and I believe that they didn't see my worth because I didn't either. It was important for me to listen to exceptionally harsh and often abusive criticisms from previous relationships. When you hear horrible things about yourself like a record stuck on repeat, you start to believe them. I needed to accept those comments and move past them. They were reflections of those people, not me.

From there I spent time getting to know myself. Connecting with my mind like never before and learning about my passions and my desires. Making mental notes of all of the things I want from this world. Whether that's what I want to do as a career, what I want from friendships, what I desire from my sex life... everything. I've built myself up from the inside. I know who I am now more than ever. I know what I want and I will not settle for anything less.
That's another amazing thing about self love, you know what you want from life, you know exactly what treatment you deserve and you refuse to give your precious time to people who don't deserve it.

When you truly love yourself from the inside out, you'll start to shine. You know it's true because I'm betting you've met someone like this before. Your kindness, your happiness, your self worth, it'll all shine out of you like a fiery flame and trust me, people will not be able to get enough of you. Everyone you meet will be able to see how much you respect yourself and they'll feel a gravitational pull towards you.

Try meditation and yoga. Mindfulness is a necessity for me when it comes to self love. It's my portion of the day to take time for myself and reconnect. I can get into my head space and understand how I'm feeling that day. I can't recommend it enough. Download the free app 'headspace' and give it a go. Not sponsored obvs, I just bloody love it.

Please. Take time to work on yourself. Get to know yourself better than anyone else ever could. Be 100% yourself on the inside and reflect that on the outside. Wear what you want to wear, get yourself to a point where you're happy with your image. Whatever 'happy' is to you. Don't follow body image expectations, don't compare yourself to others. Make yourself a physical representation of your personality. When you're that sure of yourself, when you feel that much unbreakable love for yourself, you'll start attracting some incredible people.

You got this.

No comments