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.
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