Fear and love cannot exist harmoniously. Fear and anger only prohibit us from allowing ourselves to live in positivity and build our lives the way that we want. We continuously find fault in others rather than taking ownership of identifying the environment and energy we want to keep around us. If you look at the world or even yourself in a new light you might find that you attract the life you want to live. There are times we tend to always think our happiness is at the mercy of others and sacrifice our own happiness to seek love from others. We forget that the love from ourselves (and from God) are the most important. If we forget to love ourselves we lose confidence and we lose belief in ourselves. We start to believe that the flaws/faults/mistakes others see in us are all that we are. We begin to think that the emotions of others is what keeps us going. And while it is important and sometimes necessary to sometimes see your reflection from a different perspective, if we believe in ourselves and what we are capable of, we learn to love who we are on our own. We become much stronger. Self-love gives us the power to achieve so much more and go so much further in life. Think about it - if we filled our lives with so much love for ourselves (and even for the world around us), how much anger, hate, guilt, shame, and negativity could we eliminate within ourselves (and again the world around us!)

“Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself. Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home.”

— Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Always remember to give yourself some room for error and use it as an opportunity to be better, but never forget to forgive and love yourself. Sometimes we are harder on ourselves and we find faults in everything we do. But what we forget to do is applaud and acknowledge all the good we do and have within us. Sometimes its good to have a daily reminder about the positive things. At the end of the day you have to live with yourself and be happy with who you are and what you stand for. Sometimes all you need is a little love from yourself to feel like you can keep moving forward each day. How often do you look inwards to find what you expect others to see? When you look in a mirror do you recognize that it is YOUR reflection, not someone else’s?

Try this exercise that I learned over my journey:

Take a deep breath and close your eyes
Identify one thing about your Inner Self that you love
Open your eyes, take a deep breathe and look into a mirror
Identify one thing about your Outer Self that you love

It’s amazing to notice how little we truly spend time to admire ourselves and how much time we spend judging others or assuming how other people are judging us. But really all that matters is what we see in ourselves and how we appreciate and acknowledge it. At the end of the day, how can you expect someone else to love you if you can’t love yourself? While there is always a higher power that will love us no matter what, and we should always have faith that we are protected and have guidance, we have to find love within and around us as well. Always remember to be true to yourself and believe in who you are and want to be.

Self-Love