Life is hard, and there are too many days when it feels like giving up would be easier. Everyday we carry baggage that can make you fall out of love with yourself and make you feel insufficient. But loving yourself is so important. If you don’t, you’ll never have the confidence to do all you want to do in your life. You’ll stay within your comfort zone and coast through a just good enough life even though you have the potential for so much more.

Life is shorter than you think it is and it passes quickly so how we spend each and every day is so important. You need self-love to chase big dreams and make them your reality. It's important to spend some time each day getting inspired all over again. You can read an inspiring book, watch a video, or even listen to music. We have access to inspiration 24/7, and it’s important to utilize it and find what makes you love who you are.

You are unique and amazing and you are the only one of you in this world. So stop trying to fight the old, don't try to understand why things in the happened in the past the way they did, the only thing that matters is that you are who you are because of it. Trying to fight the old is a battle you'll never win, so don't try. What's important is what's happening right now: The present.

It’s time to take your love back from those who hurt you; from the people who never understood how to protect someone who cared as deeply as you did. It’s time to take those pieces of love and hope, from the hands of those who do not deserve to hold them any longer. You are worth being whole again and putting yourself back together.

It's important to understand that you never had any control over how long someone stayed or how much someone loved you. It doesn't reflect on who you are as a person or how lovable you are. However, you do have a say in how you rise from the dust and learn to love and appreciate yourself. You have control over how you grow, and build yourself from the pieces of the past, whether it's good or bad.

So take it slowly. Start by taking back your favorite songs, take back your favorite restaurant or diner. Then, in the end, finally take back your thoughts and don't let negative feelings consume and swallow them whole. They are YOUR thoughts, no one else's, don't let them control you. Take back your beauty and the confidence that you once had but then were stripped of after years of searching for others approval.

Eventually you will learn to love yourself again, you will appreciate who you are and grow and bloom into a beautiful person once again. You'll grow between the cracks of memories and find strength in your scars. No one can give you more love than you can give yourself. And then once you can learn to love yourself, then you can figure out how to love someone else to the same degree.