Love Yourself First

"I am mine before I am anyone else's."

-Nayyirah Waheed

EVERYONE wants to feel loved. Regardless of whether or not you want to admit it we're all soft for affection. We all need this feeling of warmth and comfort you only get with love. Now most people go out and look for it and that's just the wrong way to go about it. You'll only find love that is true and real to you through loving yourself first. Love ya self!

This post was inspired by many things but rappers like Kendrick really put me in the mindset to write this tonight. Shoutout to the rappers who practice and teach self-love everyday. <3

So far on my blog I've talked about a lot of little things that you can do to improve the quality of your life and make the best of this time we have here on Earth, but this topic is NOT little. This is the most important message I want to send to all of my readers because this by far was the biggest thing I had to do in order to grow closer to my higher self. Self-Love is sooooooo important you guys. You can't expect to get real love if you don't love yourself first. In an earlier post I mentioned how I went through a period of depression where I looked at everything in my life negatively. Well that included the way I viewed myself. I felt very worthless and when ask "what's something you love about yourself?" I struggled to think of anything. This bothered me so much and I constantly asked myself this in hopes that I would just know at some point. Like how was it possible that I could not find one thing that I loved about who I was. I continued to ask myself this everyday and really reflected on this a lot and in due time figured out that baby steps would help me become a better me. I started really small by writing something nice about myself on post it note everyday and sticking it around my place. At first it was really simple things like "You are clean," which sounds really dumb but it eventually led to "I love my life and everything about it." I guess when I focused my mind on the question, I found the answer that I needed. And that's just it. When you focus your mind on the things that you want to feel or the things that you want to have, the universe just makes it happen. I needed to know that I loved something about myself in order to move forward and grow as a person, so I made a small effort everyday to think and bring myself to the point where I was surrounded by this feeling of love and self-worth. It was a simple start, but has now become routine for me to tell myself at least one thing I love about myself everyday to serve as a reminder that I am my own happiness.

It's so easy to say I love you. So easy to slip off the tongue and I can assume that most of you guys have said it before you guys actually meant it. I know I certainly have. But I wonder how many of you have said those three words to someone but never looked in the mirror and said it to yourself. Why is that? Isn't it silly to think that you can tell someone you love them before you really know if you do but can't tell it to yourself? You gotta look at yourself and say I love you more than you ever will say it to another being. Even if you don't know why yet. Without loving yourself first, you become dependent on others to love you and thats just not healthy. BTW I have so much respect for the people who do stick around while we out here trying to love ourselves. These are the people who know that a person is worthy of love but can't make that person realize it yet and stick around anyways. You know who you are. You a real one. While I know it's not easy loving someone who doesn't know how great they are, you can really help that person realize their greatness so keep reminding them their awesome and that you love them. I love you is easy to say and hard to mean, but if you say it enough you'll mean it one day. Tell others you love them, but tell yourself more. Love is just a word, but it goes a long way and self-love will inevitably lead you to a better you. Want love to feel love. Give love to get love. & LOVE LOVE LOVE YOUR SELF.

Summarized:

• You are your own happiness. No one else can bring that to you. They can only guide you to your true enlightenment, they can't be it. 
• Love others. If you have love to give why not let people have some? Spread your light on others, make the world a better place. 
• LOVE YOURSELF! I can say this a thousand times but theres no easier way than that. Love yourself for who you are. Embrace your life and good things will come. 

Here are some affirmations I found on Pinterest to get you started

Peace and love,

Jaz 

p.s. I will be writing separate posts about anonymous people who have some relevance to this self-love post. These people have either helped me love myself or allowed me to help them. I'll attach links to those posts here when I type them out.