Self Love is Yours and Yours Only

Let's talk about self love -- Arguably, the hardest subject to swallow these days.

Now, I'm not going to bullshit you. I'm not going to beat around the bush and tell you the stupid line:

"You can't expect someone to love you, unless you learn to love yourself."

I'm calling that right now. That is some grade A, level one, absolute bullshit.

Let me elaborate... Self love does not come at the expense of you knowing your self worth. Self love is there because of how much you are worth. You're priceless. You loving yourself does not come when you "finally realize how amazing you are"! That is a lie someone with a pastel colored Tumblr blog proclaimed, as a caption, underneath a photo of a kale smoothie. It's ridiculous. First of all, a kale smoothie has nothing to do with self love/self worth. Second of all, your self love/self worth is in no way dictated by anyone, but yourself. Your mom can't tell you how much you're worth, and the person sitting next to you in class can't tell you how you should learn to love yourself. Only you can love yourself in the way that you need to be loved. And let me tell you, it's different for everybody.

Loving yourself comes in all different ways. It isn't rainbows all day. It's perseverance. It's strife. It's a relationship with your emotions. Loving yourself means knowing that you can suffer a mental illness and still be amazing. Loving yourself means knowing that everything you know from that weird movie fact you saw on IMdb, to why camels have humps. (Please don't ask me why camels have humps.) Loving yourself can mean a myriad of different things. But all that it SHOULD mean is what it means to YOU. I'm so tired of everyone telling everyone else how and when they should love themselves. I'm tired of pretentious people telling other people that they cannot be loved unless they find their self worth.

Wanna know what that means?

It means that whoever is telling you that you can't be loved until you love yourself, means you're not worthy of being loved until get over yourself.

Don't listen to them. They're absolutely wrong. It's a completely different story if I had said, "Stop telling people that they cannot be loved until they find their self worth." Because I'll tell you right now, self love is hard to come by, but when it does, it feels fantastic. Don't take that away from someone, just because you think you're the most loved person on the planet. You're not. Believe me, you're not. But what you are is amazing, regardless of other's opinions. SO STOP TELLING PEOPLE HOW THEY SHOULD BE LOVED.

The way you love yourself is not equal to how much you are worth. Don't believe that for a second. The way you love yourself is yours and all yours. If you love yourself today because you got out of bed, or ate an apple before class, then that is the way you love yourself. You THE READER, being priceless, good enough, loved enough, and worthy enough, is not equal to the love you "have to have" for yourself.

Self love doesn't come in a fruit basket with a pretty bow on it. Self love does not come in another person. Self love, can only come from yourself. (Hence the word 'self'...) Self love comes in waves. It's here and then it's not. But don't you dare tell someone that they are not worthy of being loved and having love, just because the tide hasn't reached the shore yet. Love for yourself will come in waves. It'll be there one morning and maybe the next, you won't know when it'll come back.

BUT do not equate your self love to an ocean.

It's not all consuming. It doesn't have life underneath it, deep down where no one wants to go. It doesn't house other people.

It's a wave. It'll come and it'll go, but you know it's always there.

(That was a horrible analogy, but you get the point.)

Just remember that you are enough no matter who tells you what. You are beautiful, worthy, and loved, regardless of everyone telling you that you can't be loved. You are enough.

Please never forget that.