Why is it so much easier to fall in love with a stranger and give them your soul… than to love yourself? To put yourself first? To try to make yourself happy? Take care of your heart?
It’s easier to love someone else than it is to love yourself… because it’s not the same kind of love you offer in these two situations.
Loving someone else is pretty easy if you don’t know much about that person because you tend to fill in their missing parts with your fantasies about who they are and what they might be. You don’t know, but something makes you offer unconditional love, and we don’t attribute negative traits to people we fall in love with and things we like.
Loving yourself is a pretty complicated thing. Quite different from loving someone else – especially if we’re talking about a new person, with whom you feel comfortable, who tries to show you only their good sides and who you find interesting with each passing day.
When it comes to the relationship you have with yourself… here’s a whole story years long. A real history of things that you not only know, but know better than anyone else. You know the not-so-nice things about yourself, those little things that are shameful, even sinful. You know your own petty prejudices, hatred and resentment. You know all your thoughts.You are aware of those times when you have done less than honorable things.
How are you supposed to love someone you know without a curtain? Who has not only good qualities, but flaws? Who doesn’t live the life you dream of?
The answer is simple: through forgiveness. By letting go of pride. By letting go of the attitude and the idea that you are different. By accepting the past and the fact that people have different stories that no one knows. By accepting yourself – with good and bad, qualities and flaws, good times and not so good times, struggles won and disappointments gathered. With everything you are.
If you can learn to forgive yourself for all the mistakes you’ve made, for those little things you’ve done and now regret, you can begin to appreciate the good things you’ve done and are capable of doing. If you can get rid of pride, you can see yourself as you really are. If you can change “I am different” to “I am another soul who needs love and understanding just like all the people on this earth”, then you can accept yourself and begin this journey to self-love.
One piece of advice: don’t try to love yourself as you are now because you are now in training and you definitely feel you need to make some changes to yourself. Try to love the person you were in the past, accept that soul with the mistakes you made and gradually you will manage to love yourself from the present. The time between who you were and who you are will slowly but surely shorten until one day you will look in the mirror and say to yourself “I am proud of myself!”
