Self Love

I know that I've been trying to jump start this blog and its been taking awhile, but I am back again and this time I want to stay more consistent and persistent.  This blog will bring my opinions on everything from family to fashion, from love to life and from work to worship. The topic for this week is one that is very near and dear to my heart.

Self Love

People often don't realize how vital they are to those around them and in turn to society.  We tend to become comfortable in our current situations and give up on our dreams.  Perhaps we figure that we've found a decent paying job and have become to "grown up" to pursue our dreams any longer. This situation becomes a repetitious cycle known as a "rut" and this stuck feeling can make you feel caged, suppressed or depressed.  We begin to take ourselves for granted often pushing our own health and happiness to the side to continue to live this mundane life that stifles our own personal development, our own growth.  We forget that even as adults we continue to learn and grow to feed our minds and souls as well as our bodies.

As children we are taught that we can be whatever we want to be, that if we can dream it we can do it.  As we grow up we learn that is not always the case...not everyone has what it takes to be the President of the United States (some of us are just too honest for that gig), or Americas Next Top Model, or even an American Idol.  We learn that there are some things that cannot be learned, such as singing, while you can learn to tune your voice you are born with or without the talent to sing.  You can learn to play piano but you are born with or without the rhythm to play.  So as we get older we begin to develop our natural talents and skills and create new dreams.

These more adult dreams are much easier to attain and are often well within our reach but life throws us curve balls and circumstances change making those dreams just a little more out of our reach. There are those that will continue to strive and those that will give up and settle.  I'm writing this piece to tell you DON'T SETTLE...never forget your dreams even your silly childhood dreams, depriving ourselves of this chips away at our self love.

Granted there are several reasons a person comes across that can diminish the love for one's self, but here's something that we tend to forget....self love can be taught!!  It takes time, patience and practice but it is teachable.  You can learn to love yourself the way you did in the past, maybe it was so long ago that you don't remember but you did, and if you didn't then that's even more of a reason to learn now.  People tend to stay in bad situations because they don't love themselves enough to let go.  Bad relationships are a prime example of this, so are some drug abusers.  If you notice in many cases the addict wants to quit for their families or their children but later come to realize they must do for themselves or it will never stick.  What I mean is that while those reasons are great motivators to quit if the person isn't ready i.e. doesn't love themselves enough, they just revert back to those behaviors again or replace them with something else.

I have learned that there is an order to love, what I mean by that is you must put God first and foremost because He can fulfill any and all voids you may feel within you, He can heal all of your old wounds that just won't close up.  Second you must love yourself, if you don't you can never truly love someone else, think back to the drug abuser scenario.  Third is your family...your children, spouse, parents or whoever that may entail.  I know many of you may not agree with that last statement and that's fine we are all entitled to our own opinions, but there is yet another scenario that may explain that better.  If an airplane is heading into turbulence you are supposed to put on your oxygen mask first and then that of your child.  Now most parents will instinctively want to place their child's mask on first, but that is wrong....because if you pass out before you can get your mask on who will revive you?  If you put on yours and your child passes out you can tend to the child and revive them.

 Now I'm not saying to put your needs ahead of that of your children, because if we were starving and there were only 2 sandwiches best believe my 4 children will eat and I will starve!!  I'm saying that in order to fully love your family the way they need to be and deserve to be loved you must learn to love God first then yourself in order to open your heart to it's fullest love potential.  Sometimes that means continuing to strive for your dreams, continuing to learn new things, continuing to feed your mind, body, and soul with positive and productive knowledge that will better you as a person.

I hope that this piece can get some of you to think about where you are in life and where you want to be.  At the very least I hope and pray that I have motivated you to think about how much you love yourself!!