The Most Exciting, Challenging, and Significant Relationship You'll Ever Have

Carrie Bradshaw said it best: "Don't forget to fall in love with yourself first."

Many moons ago, I was talking to a wiser woman about what I think is truly important in life. My main assertion was that living through love is what it all comes down to. She looked at me quite seriously and spoke words that would forever change my life.

"Love is most important?"
"Yes."
"Wouldn't that also mean loving yourself?"

I had actually, truly never thought of it that way.

I wrestled with the idea of humility for a long time as a teenager, not knowing how highly I should consider myself without putting myself above others. But that's not humility at all. Humility is not degrading yourself. You are supposed to respect yourself, to love yourself unconditionally, and to treasure who you are. As said by C.S. Lewis, "Humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less." You are of tremendous value as an individual, and you should fully appreciate that. Humility is making room in your life to appreciate the wonderful, beautiful creations that other people are too.

Becoming your own best friend is of extremely high importance. You have to spend your whole life with you. So you may as well reconcile your problems and start working on developing a healthy relationship.

This means putting yourself first. But wait! That's selfish right? Nuh-uh. Actually, no. It's not.
Your health, well-being, and sanity should always be your number one priority.
If you don't take care of yourself, guess what happens? You start falling apart emotionally, mentally, and physically. And guess who has to step in and help you clean yourself up? The people close to you.
So do everyone a favour, and pay attention to you.

If you fall apart, you lose all functionality. If you have to focus on yourself to get your head on straight, do it. Picking up a couple pieces every now and then is way easier for everyone compared to having to pick up all the pieces at once. When you care for yourself, you can care for others so. much. better.

Do you love the people around you? Your children, your siblings, your friends? One of the best things you can do for them is to teach them how to love themselves from watching your example. You can tell them how beautiful and wonderful they are all day, but it won't make a difference if you treat yourself badly. People learn from what they observe. Actions.

What it comes down to is that you can't properly give love or experience love without knowing how to love yourself. You can't respect without knowing how to respect yourself. You can't commit to successful relationships without first having a healthy relationship with yourself. You can't care for others if you don't care for yourself.

But you shouldn't treat yourself well just for the benefit of others, you should do it for you.

Like I said before, you're stuck with you for your whole life. You can decide to be your greatest ally or your greatest enemy. And I don't know about you, but I would rather have a ally inside my head than an enemy.

Nobody is going to "complete you". Ew. Gross. Excuse me while I go vomit. Partners in life are great. Boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, best friends... they're all fantastic. But nobody, nobody, is going to fill any sort of void in you. That romantic nonsense doesn't exist. It's your job to be a complete person. If you feel incomplete, get to work. Because you've got to become a complete person if you ever want to have any sort of healthy relationship. And if your happiness and self worth depends on someone else, you will be disappointed. Constantly.

And you know what's lovely. You can be a whole, complete, beautiful, dynamic, happy, competent individual. It is 100% achievable. Falling in love with yourself is not narcissistic. Falling in love with yourself for the beautifully messy person you are is the greatest romance of all. And if you can love yourself like that, you can really do anything.

Forgiveness: Not Just For God.

I find it hard to accept happiness sometimes. I question it. I think it's badness masquerading as happiness. I prepare myself for the inevitable pain hiding around the corner. I can't trust life anymore because it has deceived me and wounded me so many times. But happiness exists. It really truly does. True joy exists, real love exists, and pure happiness is a real thing. And I know this as a fact because righteousness wins the world in the end. And it's not that life is always rainbows and butterflies, because it's not. There is good and bad. But there is good, truly. It's at least half of life. Life is not safe and things are challenging, but love and happiness and goodness are real. Very real. 

And yes, life disappoints you. I'm sure it has disappointed you in one way or another. I know it's disappointed me. Things let you down. Evil is a real thing, and people do make mistakes. Between those two things happening, life can dish out a lot of pain. But that does not have to dictate the rest of your life. Through your troubles, life is put into perspective and you become wiser. Wisdom is often a gift that comes at a price. But look, sweetie. You don't have to colour everything black. Some things are truly nice. You have the ability to revel in the good and dismiss the bad. Badness is bad but you do have the power to dismiss it. That is what forgiveness is for. Forgiveness is acknowledging there is badness and then deciding to magically wipe it away. We have that power, that is what forgiveness is. We have the power to erase the bad in our lives. How wonderful a gift forgiveness is. 

And yeah, life would be nicer if we didn't have to forgive. But that's not an option. We have the choice to hold onto the things that bring us down, reminding us of our pain and the injustice that caused them. That is certainly the easier option. We can hold onto it, hoping one day for things to be made right. For the apologies to come. For life to somehow balance out. Or, we can decide to balance the scales ourselves. To absolve the wrong. 

I am mad at life a lot. I'm angry that I've had to face the things I've had to face. I resent my depression and all the things it stole from me without my permission. That's the thing about illness, it never asks your opinion before taking over. It just comes along and does what it wants. And I hate it for that. I hate it so much for all the personal damage it did in my life. But you know what? There's not a single thing I can do about that. It really really sucks. Really. And I wish I could make it pay for what it did to me. But I can't. And when I rehash all the dirty details and I get angry, irritated, and miserable, it doesn't hurt anyone else except for me. Actually, that's a lie. It hurts my family, my boyfriend, and my friends. But it doesn't change my situation. Only forgiveness can do that. The decision to pardon the past.

So forgive yourself. Forgive your feelings and your thoughts. Forgive the things that you've done and the ways that you've felt. Forgive the people that have intentionally hurt you and the people who were simply indifferent towards you. Forgive yourself for letting their indifference hurt you so much. Forgive the life situations that you couldn't change. Forgive illness and pain. It can no longer take hold of you if you forgive it. Forgive your loved ones for the times when they do the wrong thing, and forgive yourself for the times you do the wrong thing. 

And then, when you have erased the evil in your life, live today unhindered by that which was dragging you down. When you erase others' badness towards you, they are a clean slate. There is no reason for their past to influence their future with you. They are new people in your eyes, full of opportunity, purity, and hope.  

You have the power to make life pure and unmarked. Forgive and wipe it all away. You are the one holding you back. If you are missing the joy and contentment in your life, take a real good look at what you're holding onto.