Who Do You Love Most?

Who do you love most?

Your partner?  Your children? (I know, I know, we can't pick a favorite.  But there are days I'm pretty sure one of my kids is higher in the ranking, lol)  Your best friend?  Your pet?

What if I told you it has to be YOU?  That in order to love the person you say you love the most, you have to actually love yourself FIRST, and the MOST?

Self-Love

Self-love isn't a nice to have.  It is the foundation for all of your successes - Relationships. Career. Family. All of it.

If you don't love yourself most, then you are cheating those you do love.

How?  Because you can't give what you don't have.

Sure, you can love someone else while not fully embracing yourself.  But you will never be able to love them as deep as you could if you were coming from a place of true self-acceptance and self-love.

A lack of self-love is the root of almost all of our inter-personal problems in this world.  People who don't love themselves try to fill the hole with something else:  work accolades, food, alcohol, unhealthy relationships, giving to others all the time, power over others, unhealthy focus on appearance, etc.

They tend to project all the things they feel are wrong with themselves onto others.  They are more defensive and/or give into toxic people-pleasing.

This lack of self-love turns into unhealthy attachments to people and things, and makes us do things that aren't very nice to each other.  

Example:  Staying in judgment of others.  When you harshly judge yourself, you take that same approach and tend to judge others.  It creates a divide, and before you know it, it creates drama, confusion, misunderstanding, sadness, disappointment, etc.

When you fully love yourself, not much bothers you.  It is so much easier to live and let live when you aren't so harshly looking outwards to find something wrong with THEM to distract you from the pain of not loving yourself.

When you fully love youreself, failure can be seen as a learning opportunity instead of evidence that you are unlovable.  As a leader, you won't take your team's missteps as your own.  You will be able to support them instead of resenting them.

People that truly love themselves honor their health, boundaries, and needs.

Don't get that confused with "loving" people.

There are plenty of selfless, loving people in this world that will do almost anything for those around them.  Some of those people also have self-love.  But most are trying to make up for something they feel is missing inside, and in the process, they run themselves into the ground trying to do everything for everyone else.

This isn't a harsh judgment, but a reality I have seen time and time again.  

So how can we love ourselves more?

By accepting who we are, right now.  By recognizing that there is no perfect person.  That everyone has imperfections and that it is part of our humanity, our DNA.  Our imperfections are not something to be worked on, but rather something to be embraced.

Focus on the things you do well and underscore all the greatness within you instead of focusing on your perceived faults.

We can continue to learn and grow and develop.  It is a lot easier to learn, grow, and develop from a place of self-love than from a place of self-loathing.

When we love ourselves, we continue to foster our path forward and it happens with ease.  When we loath something about ourselves, working on that thing feels hard, exhausting, and takes so much energy.

If you love your body, it is a lot easier to feed it what it needs and move it daily.  Because you love it!  You want to treat it like the temple that it is!

When you don't love (or you actually despise) your body, it becomes the thing that needs fixing.  It is hard to get it moving, to give it what it needs because it is just TERRIBLE, NOT HOW I WANT IT TO LOOK, AND NOT GOOD ENOUGH!

Ugh.

This common thread follows us in all aspects of life: work, relationships, family, community, all of it.

So let go of all the thoughts you have about how you aren't good enough. 

You are worthy of love and belonging.  Right now.  As you are.

I know it.  But that doesn't matter.  I need you to know it.  And not just know it.  But to truly embody it.

You are loved.  You have the capability to love yourself - every single part of you - if you choose to.

Today I choose to love myself fully.  I hope you make the same choice.

Cheers to feeling the love today,
Sharon

Self-Love Starts with YOU

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