Love "me"

You have to love yourself, before you can love anyone else.

A concept so simple. Love yourself and then love others. But how do we go about loving ourselves without affection? How is it that we can love ourselves without a loving relationship? And if there is a way, what is it?

I guess it works the same way your needs do. If you cannot suffice your own needs and care for yourself, how can you anyone else?

But the truth of the matter is, we avoid ourselves inside and out. We avoid mirrors, pictures (unless you are narcissistic), self conversation, talking about ourselves, our needs. Everything we do, will never be good enough by our own standards. We will never amount to anything in our own eyes. We continue to be our own biggest critic. We will never be comfortable and safe in our own skin.

STOP!

We are gorgeous. We are smart. We are funny and bright. We have great ideas, we have a great personality, and people love being with us. We are beautiful just the way God made us.

See, our attitude keeps us down. We allow ourselves to get down because we listen to the critic inside.

So stop listening. Argue with it. Tell it to eff off. Tell the inner critic that we love ourselves. Upset the critic so that it listens for a change.

I'm realizing that once that voice shuts up, my brain has a few minutes to love myself. And everyday, I intend to grant my brain a few minutes more to love me.

So I challenge you. Shut the critic up, and love yourself for a few minutes each day.

Because ultimately, until we love ourselves, we can never love anyone else and chances are, the majority of people we know, will not be able to love us.