Many of us are familiar with the words “self love”, which is great because it is something we should all be acquainted with. My concern however, is the fact that most seem to have a very narrow minded perspective of self love.
Self love requires you to do some deep soul searching and work on your “inner self”. Getting a new haircut, changing your hair colour and having your nails done is great. You should make yourself look good, but the issue is limiting self love to the time spent working on our appearance. When in fact self love is not that shallow.
It is being honest with yourself and acknowledging that there are areas in your life, which you have not dealt with. As a result of these unresolved issues, it affects your relationships and your well-being.
While growing up and going through important stages of my life like the shift from preadolescent to adolescent, my dad was in my life but he did not play an active role. He was always just somewhere there, needless to say at that point I needed him and it was difficult going through all these changes, wanting the assurance that I am loved and cared for from my dad and not receiving it.
Moving along, a few years later. In my second year of university I allowed myself to be vulnerable and opened myself up to the prospect of love. Things did not pan out the way I thought they would and I had my heart broken.
Because of the space I was in, I questioned myself. I wondered if I was the problem and why people did not want to be in my life. I felt like I was not good enough. This incident set me back to when I was younger and I realized that my dad broke my heart before any guy could. I realized that the heart break hit me so hard because of what I felt towards my dad and as a result I questioned whether I was worthy of an actual healthy relationship.
I acknowledged that those feelings needed to be worked through. That I needed to forgive my dad for being absent and let him know that I release him and all the ill feelings I harboured. Once I did that, I could heal and acknowledge that there was nothing wrong with me. My dad could not fulfil his role as a father then because of what he was going through and where he found himself. The same goes for my first love, I put so much pressure on him and the relationship because of my issues and what I needed. Where in fact, neither of us were ready for something that serious.
The point I'm trying to make is, self love is fixing you because you love you. It is about wanting to both be and feel better, because you value “you”.
Let's continue being honest with ourselves and healing the wounds of the past, so we don't have another generation of trauma passing itself down.
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