What We Make Of Ourselves - by Letters From Delight

"But how can you love a person if you haven't first loved yourself?".A saying that sounds cliché, but in reality, never gets old. Time and time again, I have seen the potent effect of not loving oneself enough.Loving oneself includes giving yourself the grace to rise again when you fall short, knowing that you deserve better, and therefore walking out of any situation that deprives you of happiness. And how can we speak about self-love when we do not understand ourselves? How can we give our two cents on self-love when we have continuously bargained for a life that is to our own detriment? I say this because I have borne the consequences of being with someone who is bereft of self-love. I have felt the heat of being close to a person who constantly puts others before themselves, to their own detriment. And every time, while I nurse the hurt their choices leave me with, my heart still does not forget to feel pity for them. When we talk about self-love, we often think it is simply about saying, “I love me.” But it goes far deeper than the surface level of words. It is what we make of ourselves. Self love is making decisions that consider us, as much as we do for others. Self-love reflects in the actions we take, the plans we make for both temporal and future purposes, the desires we pursue, and the investments we make. It is reflected in the company we keep and the words we use on ourselves. It is even reflected in the kind of things we choose to exhaust ourselves over, and in the lens through which we choose to see life—whether positively or negatively. Because the way a person builds the lens through which they see life often reflects in how they relate with others. If you have constantly built your life around negativity, you will find yourself searching for the ditch in everybody else's good news. You will always have an alternative explanation, a reason to doubt, or an escape route prepared in case things go south. I have been affected by people who choose to live their lives a certain way and, somehow, their choices have affected me a great deal. I took my time to trace this, and I have come to see that one of the significant things missing in their lives was self-love. And this applies to friendships, relationships, and especially parenting. The relationship a person has with themselves eventually becomes part of the relationship they offer to everyone around them.Love yourself rightfully and enough. For a person cannot give out what they do not have.

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