You Must Love Yourself First

I’ve never been one for clichés.  I didn’t always believe them or felt them to be so trivial. In fact, I felt they were excuses; things people said in order to avoid their true feelings and intentions.  After all, half of us use them without truly understanding the meanings of these phrases.  Over the last few months I’m starting to see that some of them have value.

For the last 8 years, I’ve been looking for something that simply can’t be found.  I grew up with an emotionally neglectful (at best) father and have spent those last year trying to fill the void that left.  It wasn’t until listening to one of my favorite that it dawned on me.  The real meaning of that one phrase you hear so often…you won’t find love until you love yourself.

Now, I would normally call this bull.  I don’t know a single person who loves everything about themselves…physically, emotionally, intellectually.  We all have flaws that we would like to change.  We have those negatives we’d like to work on.  But, something I’ve realized is that in one sense, the cliché rings true…somewhat.

You need to know who you are, what it is you are searching for and what you want in life.  You have to know your faults, what you need to work on and accept it as part of you.  You need to be open to the fact that you need to work on things and that you don’t always act out love in all of your relationships. Sometimes we need to dig into what

Owning up to your own bad behavior is difficult, but so necessary in discovering who you are and what you want.  Discovering what you can work with, what triggers you and what pushes your buttons takes time.  But, it is one of the most important things you need to unearth.

I would like to amend that age old adage.  It’s not that you won’t find love until you love yourself.  You’ll find it several times and in such varied forms.  However, you can’t truly appreciate that love until you know yourself. You can’t comprehend it and will most likely mistreat it.  You truly can’t understand it, until you understand yourself.