Self love for me, as for a lot of people, did not come easy. She’s been knocking on my door for quite some time now and when I finally decided to let her in, I told myself I would never look back.
I consider myself to be a very independent person. All of my life, it had been instilled in me that asking anyone for help was a sign of weakness. “Help yourself” “you don’t need handouts” “if I wasn’t here to help you, what would you do otherwise”? This toxic language instantly transformed into a bitterness within me. I’ve never had a solid relationship with my family, and that’s created a great deal of trauma over the years. It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that the people in your life that are supposed to love you the most, unconditionally, can also be the most toxic people in your life. I lashed out and created a whirlwind of unwarranted anger to so many people. People that have been there for me. People that were there for me when the ones I needed, weren’t. People whose shoulder I cried on. Needless to say, I burned a few bridges that I later had to repair and that didn’t come effortlessly.
At the end of the day, yes...all you have is yourself, and that’s okay. But in this present time, I realize there are so many people on my team. The places in my heart I lacked my family’s love, I made small families everywhere else. My neighborhood family, my work family, my social media family, my partner’s family. So yes, you have yourself, but those small families that you allow yourself to create...you have an entire village of love, and that allows you to love YOURSELF. Once I taught myself that I’m not alone in this world, I was able to let go of that hurt. You can’t choose how other people choose to handle what they’ve done to you, but you can choose not to be a victim. You can choose to forgive them and forgive yourself to move on and live your life the way it was meant to be lived. You can choose to love yourself unconditionally, because if you don’t sis, no one else will.
Self love isn’t all bubble baths and face masks. It’s a lot of hard work and getting to know yourself on a level that so many people, myself included, are scared to do. There’s no right or wrong way to start your journey and there’s no right or wrong time to start it. Your time starts now and should continue forever.
#selflove #refusetolose #womenevolve #fightforit #lgbtg #personalgrowthjourney #blackwomenwhoblog #masteryourthoughts
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