As women, and more importantly, as human beings, we all search for something or someone to complete us. To make us whole, and bring all of our pieces together. The question we need to be asking ourselves is, “Why do we need someone else to do that?”
We all know the age-old saying: “How can you expect someone to love you when you don’t even love yourself?” Although somewhat cliché, the saying very much describes many of our love lives, and rings true to all humans searching for the beautiful love we see in media. The sad truth is that love cannot save us. It cannot mend the tears in our souls. It cannot glue the broken parts of ourselves back together.
Love from another person can only be as powerful as the love you have for yourself.
As a child, I had quite a struggle defining what love was, it was a difficult concept to grasp. As I grew up, I began to learn through many experiences that love is too beautiful to deprive yourself of. Loving yourself is vital to strong and healthy relationships. Whether those relationships be romantic or platonic, self-love and appreciation comes first. An experience that made me realize the importance of this occurred when I was 12 years old. I was in the sixth grade. I was a chubby little girl, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes.
As any young girl does, I had a crush on a person in one of my classes. Days of hoping they would notice me, turned into weeks of wishing I was “good enough” for them. I failed to have confidence in myself, and as a consequence, I stayed on the sidelines suffering in silence as people my age began to have “boyfriends” and “girlfriends”. Now while sixth graders don’t know what love is, and sixth grade boyfriends aren’t equivalent to partners in adult relationships, it proves the point nonetheless.
Once you develop a strong, positive, and loving relationship with yourself, the seemingly unquenchable thirst for love will be satisfied. Once you become whole, and your pieces become held together by your own incredible strength, reaching the end of the path to finding love will no longer seem necessary for survival, the journey of love itself becomes simply a beautiful one to make.
The journey of life will provide you with an infinite number of opportunities to love and be loved, and it is easy to confuse the order of the paths we must take. The path of self-love must always be traveled first. It will provide you with the eyes to see the vast beauty in the path of romantic relationships.
Remember that learning to love yourself takes time, effort, dedication, and tons of emotional energy. It can be difficult to unlearn the lessons taught to us by constant shaming of our abilities, thoughts, ideas, and appearance.
It’s so difficult to constantly see strong, beautiful women brought down by the world. For many to feel as if they aren’t enough breaks my heart. Unfortunately, it’s something we all experience. We are all single girls who rock- we are amazing, beautiful, strong and free. It’s hard to realize our worth and incredible individuality by ourselves, but together, we can do anything.
The video below may help change your perspective in the way you look at women.
- What do you see when you look at me? - November 3, 2016