#97: Believe in and love yourself. If you don’t, no one will.
12 Oct 2009 Leave a Comment
in The Self
Self esteem is probably the biggest battle everyone faces. A rare few are born with the ability to stare in the mirror each morning and feel they deserve more and are capable of getting it at every turn. Some people do have this and I suspect it begins at a very early age, where they are told these important truths and learn them as fact.
Most of us, however, do not feel so confident and content with what we were given. Some people have the proverbial ‘chip’ on their shoulder, all because of wanting more, feeling you deserve it, but not knowing how to get it. I cannot count on my hands the times I have felt like this (and even been accused of quite blatantly acting like this).
Over time, I have come to realize that the most successful people, in love and life, have a deep love for themself and what they are capable of. More importantly, they do not have a negative ‘soundtrack’ that can remind them of what they are not capable of. I know that many people in my life were ready to provide that soundtrack at a moment’s notice.
There are always those who would abandon me when I needed to be told I could make it through a hard moment, to others whom you could sense the disbelief I would even be capable of making it through something. We all have encountered people like that and some of us are surrounded by them all the time. What has struck me over the years of learning is that again and again, I prove my inner voice and other’s outward voices that I do indeed love myself quit a bit and I am capable of almost anything.
Nelson Mandela said that ‘our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure’. If you are born with that innate knowledge, wonderful. But if you are like almost everyone on earth, some situation, person, magazine or concept has occurred and taught you that you may possibly not deserve the love you so desire.
The most common way that women are robbed of this innate knowledge is when they are faced with the universal truth that once someone else loves them, they will be loved.
Quite the opposite is true. I have learned that as you love yourself (and I mean, really love yourself….to the point of saying it in the mirror if you have to convince yourself), people feed off that love and join in. Every time you cock your head to the side and think, ‘I can’t believe I did that, I am awesome!’, there is a universal force that will make others around you wonder if this is true.
That is not to say one shouldn’t understand their faults, and strive to be worthy of love by knowing how to love back. Or that there is not a tendency to be in denial when things just seem to never work and there is some reason why. Investigate yourself, your actions and who you really want to be. If you know that, in whatever situation you are in, you are acting for the good of yourself and others, believe in yourself and follow a path with pride.
I waited many sleepless nights wondering what could make me unlovable in one situation or another. Every time I was faced with the fact that when I believed in myself, my goals and my ability to love and be loved, there was someone, somewhere at some time who would respond in kind. No on is truly unlovable, so if you do not have yourself surrounded by the most supportive, loving people,… start the trend and at some point, everyone else will join in.
