Let’s face it. Relationships are important.
Whether it’s the one you have with your family, your significant others or your friends, the people you share your life with and choose to love define us all as human beings and offers us some solace in a world that can sometimes be unbearable to live in.
But in our pursuit to maintain healthy relationships with those around us, we feel most people neglect the most important relationship a person will ever have in their lifetime…and that is their relationship with themselves.
When was the last time you actually stood in the mirror and were truly in love with the person staring back at you? A popular saying goes, “You will never find someone else to love you until you start loving yourself.” And we believe there is so much truth in that declaration.
We can often times become so consumed with what everyone else is thinking about us that we forget about what we think of ourselves. This leads to us losing ourselves in the relationships we strive to sustain. And once those relationships disintegrate for whatever reasons, we’re left living in the shell of a body of someone we use to know and love.
Not matter how independent you think you are, or want to be, everyone needs love. It could be the love and acceptance from paternal units that gives us purpose, or it can be the love and acceptance of the family we choose in our circle of friends. Then of course there is the love of a significant other that has the power to make us all feel like we’re walking on Cloud Nine. But none of those relationships will ever be healthy if you need that sort of love to validate your own existence.
To sustain relationships and to love another is a complicated task in itself. Love can be a “female dog.”
Love can turn the most intelligent person into a fool. It doesn’t care who falls or gets hurt in the process. Love has no prejudices, and it can happen when you least expect it. But once you’ve loved, it’s hard not to be loved in return. And when that love is ripped from our lives we’re usually left feeling disconnected and disorientated from the outside world.
That’s when love of self steps in to repair what has been broken like white T-cells fending off the invading bacteria of a virus in our blood stream. When you love yourself, it’s easier to believe everything’s going to be okay, and it becomes logically to think, “There’s something better out there for me anyway.”
So, this Valentine’s Day, before taking your significant other out to eat, or getting dressed for a “single’s night out” with your friends, take a moment to stand in the mirror and ask yourself are you really in love with who you are. If your answer is yes, then carry on, and do it safely. But if it’s no, then take some time to take yourself out and treat yourself to the finer things in life. Because if you don’t love yourself first, why should anyone else wanna love you back?