Self-Love Is the Best Love.
As Whitney Houston once said, the greatest love of all is inside of me | November Challenge Week 1
Prompt: What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about love?
I’ve heard a lot of things about love: Love makes fools of us all… There’s a thin line between love and hate… What’s love got to do with it… Before you can love someone else, you have to love yourself…
That last one has always bothered me. It reminds me of applying for an entry level job and needing experience to qualify. How are you supposed to be experienced without first getting the experience?! There are so few things in life that we need to already know before doing. Someone has had to teach us nearly everything from how to walk, how to eat, and how to say our ABC’s. Yet when it comes to love, you better come correct from jump. It doesn’t seem fair or even true to basically say, Hey, if you have a low sense of self worth you ain’t ever gonna be deserving of love or find someone willing to love you.
My question is how does one even begin to love themselves if not through loving relationships with someone else?
Of course, our parents are supposed to be our first teachers for most things in life, including showing us what stable, secure affection looks and feels like. Unfortunately, so many of us did not learn secure attachment in childhood. And even if you did have affectionate parents, you may still struggle with finding validation and worth for yourself.
I think self-love is a skill that can be learned and improved and you don’t have to already know what you’re doing in order to experience other love in your life. I think we learn how to love through our interactions with others. Through friendships and family, our successful and failed romantic relationships, through trial and error. We learn what we like, what we don’t like. We learn our good qualities and our bad habits. The more we show love and receive love from others, the more love grows within ourselves.
Now I hate to admit that this old adage does hold some truth in it. While I don’t necessarily believe you can’t experience a loving relationship until you love yourself, I have learned that loving yourself is the most important relationship in your life.
We learn how to love so we can better learn to love ourselves. And the more we love ourselves, the better we can love others. Self-worth isn’t a prerequisite for loving relationships, it’s a benefit.
I’d like to add a new maxim to our list of love clichés: the love of yourself is the most important love of your life. You don’t have to love yourself before you love someone else. But the love you have for yourself is the most impactful love you’ll experience. Is far more important than any love you may share with anyone else.
Doesn’t really matter how you come to loving yourself. If it’s something you learn from your parents, from your relationships, or if it’s just something you’re born with. It doesn’t matter if your self-love is secure before you begin loving another person. All that matters is that you begin your self-love journey and grow consistently. Self-love is what keeps you safe and at peace. It protects you from those who don’t love you. It protects you from needing the affection and validation of others to feel good about yourself.
You may love many people and things in your life and they all help you develop a stronger sense of self. No, you don’t need to be fully realized before you can receive love. But being fully yourself will only strengthen the loves you already have in your life.
Everyone is deserving of love no matter where they are in their development or healing journey.
This entry was written for WEEK 1 of the Finding the Right Words November Challenge under the theme of LOVE. Follow along using the graphic above and write about whatever comes to mind with the corresponding prompts. Share with me using the tag #FTRW or email me at jdoggett9 [at] gmail.
There’s no wrong way to journal. You just gotta find the right words. Happy Writing!