February 2023 - Love Yourself

Love really changed my life, and probably not in the way that you might expect. When people hear the word “love”, it is often thought of as in a relationship, between two people. But the kind of love that I am referring to is actually self-love – in the relationship that you have with yourself.

See, I used to operate in a lot of self-hatred. Things in my past helped form a belief that I was not worthy of love and that I needed to change things about myself in order to receive love. So, in order to motivate myself to change, I used love as a carrot.

I told myself, “When you do ___, then you’ll be worthy of love.” Ultimately, the love I gave myself was conditional – that only when I got the conditions right, would I receive love as a reward. The problem with that was, the conditions were always changing.

I was constantly striving to do the next thing to receive love and acceptance from myself. But no matter what I did, it was never enough. This left me starved for love – and disconnected in relationship with myself.

It was only when I removed the carrot and started to love the version of myself that couldn’t get the conditions right, that everything changed. What I didn’t know was that unconditional love is always available – and that I just needed to choose to partner with it and direct it towards myself.

And that’s what true self-love is, it’s partnering with unconditional love and directing it towards yourself. So let yourself off the hook – remove the conditions – and invite unconditional love in. I promise you; you’ll feel more connected in your relationship with yourself than ever before!