Love yourself first. Yes mi dear readers, both of you, you have to love yourself first. Does this mean only love myself? No, that’s why I end my sentence with “first” and not “only”. Why should I love myself first? You should love yourself first because it is the only way you can have real love in your life, or could you love your spouse, your kids, your friends or your pets with a heart that has hate in it? Some are saying “wait, I don’t love myself first, but I don’t hate myself, that’s going too far” But is it really? Tell me, if you don’t hate yourself, then why do you let that little bully inside your head call you all those names that it does? Wouldn’t you let someone else treat you like that? Or wouldn’t you, at the very least, be alarmed if you saw someone been treated like that? We are our worst critics, that we know, but sometimes criticism is over the top and turns into plain old abuse. And abuse ourselves we do, and a lot, don’t we? Not only with the little bully that lives inside our heads, but by our actions or inactions. Some of us drink too much, or smoke or abuse drugs. Some of us find comfort in food. Some of us don’t like to move to much, let alone exercise. Reality TV? Yes please! Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all we can. It’s been 5 minutes, selfie time. All this actions and inactions don’t come from a place of love of ourselves. We indulge in this behaviours because we hate ourselves? Not necessarily, mostly because we don’t even care to find out why we do them. We end up in patterns that feel good by accidents or because we intentionally put ourselves there, but with another end in mind. Little story follows to illustrate the point. I started smoking as a teenager because it was cool, I was short and that let me feel older, bigger in a way, so I smoked, really smart. Like all smokers I didn’t even like it when I started, but the feeling I got from other people looking up at me, or even noticing me more than compensated for it. And then I got used to it, the displeasure changed into pleasure, yes, smoking is pleasurable, and then both combined and that was it. By the time I quit smoking I was burning through 30 cigarettes a day and 15 years had gone by. Did I really love myself during that time? Certainly not because by then the dangers of smoking were well known by all and by me. Do I love myself more because I don’t smoke anymore? Yes, a little. So, to love myself I only need to quit vice? Not that fast my friend. Yes you should quit vice, but it’s not the only thing.
To love yourself you need to go deeper and silence the little bully. You need to love you so much that your love irradiates from you to the world. It sounds terribly corny but it’s right. True love irradiates from you like light from a candle or a star. It’s brighter near the source and fades with distance, and the only way to shine bright enough to illuminate the whole world is to shine stronger at the source, and that’s within yourself. So, please, love yourself first.