“If you don’t love yourself, you’ll always be chasing after people who don’t love you either.” – Mandy Hale
The above words could sound a little harsh but they do point to something of tremendous value – the importance of loving yourself.
Instead of looking at others to love you (who may or may not have the ability to offer love and appreciation for you at that point), you can always choose to focus your own loving gaze on yourself 🙂 …..and when you do so predominantly and consistently, you allow the law of attraction to match you up more and more with people who also appreciate you just the way you do and if you do meet someone who does not, it would not matter to you (as much as it may have before you initiated loving yourself everyday) as you, in any case, have reconnected to that genuine love and appreciation for yourself (even before meeting that person). From this place of love and strength, it’s easier to feel good, no matter what and even when you are not in this place of love, chances are high that because of the place of love and strength you are in predominantly and consistently, you will be able to be kind to yourself and be able to easily and gently guide and soothe yourself back, when ready, to the place of feeling good again. You will be living more and more moments on an everyday basis where you are feeling joy, love, appreciation, worthy and free…. – a beautiful place to be in.
Loving yourself may seem like an effort initially but as you go along, it gets easier. It’s like learning a new skill. Yes, it does require every day practice esp. initially. In the initial days, sometimes it may be easy and sometimes, it may not and that is okay. When a baby learns to walk, it does not start running the very first time. Learning to love yourself again is like that. The suggestion is to be kind and gentle with yourself while on this beautiful journey. Knowing that it’s an eternal journey helps in feeling ease more often.
Many times, one may find that unconditional happiness is an easier place to start feeling than unconditional love and that is also okay. In fact, first practicing unconditional happiness and then when ready, as per your beautiful and unique path of least resistance including unconditional love in your daily practice has higher chances of making the process easier.
Louise Hay has said that loving yourself is not vanity or arrogance as that is always from a place of fear….loving yourself means genuinely appreciation the unique and beautiful expression of life that you are. The universe is expressing itself through you. Sharing a quote by Rumi – “Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion”. Carl Sagan has written in his book, Cosmos – ““The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” You are part of this boundaryless, ever-expanding universe. You are so much more than what you can see with your eyes. You are magnificent, just like the universe of which you are a part, a beautiful and unique part.
When you nurture, love and support yourself, when you honor the magnificent creation of life that you are, when you do what makes your heart sing, when you think thoughts that give you relief and help you feel better – in other words, when you practice unconditional happiness and unconditional love, you reconnect to your freedom and to your power. From this place of love and strength, you are of so much more value to yourself and to anyone else you would want to be of value to.
At the end, sharing a simple, deep, profound and empowering quote by Abraham-Hicks –
“The greatest thing you can give yourself is freedom from what others think.”
