I want to take a moment and be serious; this blog is vital to any and every one. I hope you can take from it what it truly has to offer to you. So often in life we feel the need to change ourselves, especially in relationships. We have come to this notion that being ourselves is no longer enough, we've devalued ourselves to the point where life no longer becomes enjoyable. Let me start by saying this...you are who you are, so why if someone else doesn't like something about you should you be pressured to change and fit the mold of what they envisioned you to be. The point is simply this, love yourself. Love yourself not despite, but in spite of all your flaws. Every scratch, every scar tells a story about you. These things show you where you've been, what you've been through, and how you made it through. I've talked about loving you before but not really gotten through any lengths to explain exactly what that means. No matter how flawed, whether physically, mentally or emotionally you may be your design in essence is absolutely perfect. You are who you are supposed to be in the exact moment, right here and now you shouldn't be anyone else. Your life is about your pursuit of happiness, and not about anyone else. Sure we are all forced to make sacrifices from time to time and in more cases than not we have to make decisions we would rather not make. Eventually we get to return to whom we are though, and not loving all of you is a tragedy in the making. Again I hate the term YOLO, but it's true and it's real. Do you think you would really enjoy a life where you don't love yourself? Better yet, if the eight year old version of yourself was standing in front of you right now, what would they say to you? This is no easy task at all; loving you, all of yourself is more difficult than giving that love to another human being. It's easier to hide behind you relationships with others, spouses, children, even pets. It's easier because you can consume yourself with the ignorance that you know to be true, by investing your emotions into another you are able to ignore the truth about how you feel internally. All of me includes forgiving yourself as well. We all have things we are ashamed of, things we have said or done that we regret. The ability to forgive yourself of your past transgressions will allow your heart to become lighter, no longer laden with guilt you will find it easier to accept the love of others as well. Keep in mind I am talking about forgiving, not forgetting. I know that sounds incredibly cliché, but in my opinion the biggest difference is this. Forgiving means you are able to remember what happened but to no longer allow it to overwhelm you or alter your emotions or your mood. Forgetting is simply turning a blind eye to the events or transgressions, pretending they never happened and living as though they aren't affecting you. This is truly cancerous to the emotional and mental psyche of you, it's more harmful then you can imagine because ignorance will only allow it to subconsciously eat away at you until you become aggravated by simpler things. Learning to love all of you is a process, it won't happen overnight. It's time consuming, and life altering. All of you...although a simple phrase has a lot of hidden meaning to it, whether you've committed a crime or wronged a loved one. It doesn't matter. Even if you know that person will never forgive you, this is no longer for them. Citing my own personal experiences one of the hardest things I have ever done is to forgive my father. When I was a young boy my father was anything but a good father, he drank and did drugs; he came from a broken home and was angry all of the time. I only knew him for eight short years but in that time he went out of his way to consistently torture, harass, terrify and disappoint me. When I was eight years old my father took his own life, all the events leading to that day had lined up perfectly like dominoes. It was only a matter of time they all fell over. I spent a lot of my time being angry at him, blaming my own short comings and flaws on him and his absence in my life. It took a long time before I learned my hatred and disappoint at him were affecting my own life and decisions and preventing me from truly being happy. Learning to forgive and ultimately to love him as part of my life was one of the most emotionally daunting things I have ever faced, but I'm aware of how much more care free my life is because of it. My life personally has been anything but a fairy tale, we are taught at such a young age that we should expect our own lives to have a happy ending. By now we are all aware that is not true and frankly is never going to happen, life isn't about happy endings, or perfect scenarios. Life is about simply finding reasons to smile through the pain, laugh through the tears and finding the joy in the small things we have. The opportunities we are afforded are truly endless, every single day of your life you have a chance to not only find a moment of happiness, but to relish in the ability to enjoy even the smallest of personal victories. All of me; the sarcasm, the bad decisions, the mistakes, the regrets, the attitude, the life choices, the sick humor...all of those things that could be misconstrued in a negative light. Those are the things that make up all of me, and I love myself for all of them. Leave a Reply. |
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