Self Love

Happy New Month!

Here we are in the month of love.

Over the years, I’ve seen so many articles about self-love where they talk about loving your body, your face, your external features. As I read all these things, I said to myself why is it that I am perfectly content with my external features but I still don’t seem to love myself.

As I’ve matured in the word and actually sought God out for myself, I’ve gotten a deeper understanding of loving yourself. So, here is my self-learned version of self-love.

God has always been a God of the inside out, working from within and so it makes sense that he’d want you to love yourself from the inside out and not the other way around. I’m not ignoring the real and deep struggles of loving how you look in the mirror but I’ve found the deeper battles to be what you think of yourself and whether you love who you are on the inside.

I’ve learned a lot about myself and learning certain things about myself has given me the choice of either changing or staying the same. We all have things to change about ourselves; we’re not perfect and although God’s grace accepts us just the way we are, it will never leave us the same. There are however some fundamental personality attributes we all have that are the core of who we are and as you’ve probably heard a million times, don’t try to be someone else. This is something I had to realize for myself, that I am who I am, beautifully unique, weirdly different, purposefully designed, and specifically positioned. Realizing this also made me realize that not everyone is going to like who I am and that’s okay but the important thing is, do I like myself?

One of the two greatest commandments is to love each other as you love yourself. But how can you love another person if you don’t even love yourself? You may be thinking “I love my family, my boyfriend, my friends but not necessarily myself”, the truth is that the love you have for them is not complete if you don’t first love yourself. When you love others without loving yourself, you love only their strengths, only the things they do right, only their perfections, why? Because those are the only things you love about yourself. But, when you love yourself completely, inside out, with all your faults and insecurities, only then are you able to completely love people as they are, without judgment or conditions.

The reason we judge one another is because we are judging ourselves, one of the reasons why we hurt one another is because we are not fully loving of ourselves. Ever since I understood this, I began to love my family more, forgive my friends always, yes always, no matter what they’ve done and without conditions. (But don’t get confused forgiveness doesn’t mean they’ll have the same access) I began to judge people less, and although this is all a work in progress I’ve been able to radiate love to all those who surround me.

Loving yourself does not lead to pride, in my opinion, it brings about humility because you know your imperfections and you aren’t scared for others to see them because you accept yourself just the way that you are. When you love yourself, you love your strengths and your weaknesses, you love your flaws and your perfections, your struggles and your insecurities, you love all that have worked together to make you who you are today. When you love yourself, you don’t try to make your voice the loudest in the room, you know that whether or not they listen, your words are important simply because you are important, you do matter. When you love yourself you don’t need a million friends to approve a picture you take before you post it on Instagram. Comment or no comment, 100 likes or 10 likes, you are beautiful just the way that you are. When you love yourself, you don’t need a boy to hit you up before you are secure in your femininity or a girl to open her legs for you before you are secure in your masculinity, you are sure of who you are and who God called you to be.

When the doors are closed, the lights are off, the noise is turned down, what are the voices in your head? Are they negative voices telling you that you're not good enough, smart enough, beautiful enough, worthy enough, or are they voices of reassurance, acceptance, or love? When all is stripped away and you are all that remains, do you love all that is left?

Here are a few steps you can take to strengthen your self-love.

• Spend time with yourself, it’s unhealthy to spend so much time with people to the point where you’re unable to hear your own voice. Don’t be afraid to be alone with yourself.

• Spend time with God. Seek and live out an intimate relationship with him. Let him nurture you and reveal you to yourself.

• Identify those negative thoughts you think about yourself and identify the roots of those thoughts.

• Embrace your strengths AND weaknesses. You need to realize that both your strengths and your weaknesses make you who you are. You wouldn’t need God’s strength if you had no weakness, In 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 God says to us “My strength is made perfect in your weakness”. However as I pointed out earlier God’s grace never leaves you the same so embracing these weaknesses doesn’t mean you shouldn’t work on yourself, it just means that you shouldn’t wait till you seem ‘perfect’ before you love yourself, you are already perfect in his eyes.

• Speak your self-love into existence, the more I say to myself “I am beautiful”, the more I feel so.

• Stop comparing yourself to others. Comparison Kills Confidence.

I love you guys.