You are so loved.

You are so loved.

“Love is many things, but it’s never deceitful. Nothing toxic comes from genuine love. The strongest action a woman can do for herself is to be herself, love herself, shine amongst those who said she couldn’t, those that said she was too flawed, those who hurt her, those who gave up on her, those who didn’t care.”

I grew up where self-love wasn’t really taught to me. I was taught to listen, that my voice wasn’t really ‘that important’ since I wasn’t an adult so my feelings, thoughts, joys, wants didn’t really matter. I didn’t know what self-love was until I started to want to fix and work on myself. I didn’t think that self-love was really important. I grew up in a toxic home setting. I grew up where everyone claimed to be my mother since mine was mentally sick and chose drugs so my grandma was left with the burden of taking me in and raising me. I lived with all my aunts at one time. Each different in their own ways. I was taught that my voice really didn’t mattered at all until I made myself of something or someone. I was always called by my mother’s name. All the time. It started to become where it was a  fear  and that I really didn’t matter was slowly starting to be embedded in me.

I started to believe it. I started to think it. I started to see my mother’s face when looking at my reflection then my own. I hated myself for a long time. I acted out a lot. I will not lie or deny, I did everything I could to have everyone just leave me alone. To hate me, because well I didn’t feel good enough, important, or like I mattered. Home was an emotionally abusive place to be. I started to feel nothing.

I really didn’t know who I was or what I wanted to become till about two years ago.

I now have a general outline of what Self-Love is. Its hard most days, it’s hard to take 24 years of living, breathing, thinking, and believing in things and to just ‘let them go’. It’s hard, I’m not going to lie. Yet what started to change this way of thinking, was simply wanting to be fully and truly and genially happy with myself. In order to be happy, well I saw that I needed to have self-love. I’m slowly seeing that it has to do with a way of mentality thinking, state of mind type thing. I don’t think that I can be loved by a room full of people and it will magically give me self-love. It’s now a matter of working on it, reminding myself that I am important, that I am loved, that I do matter, that even though I have flaws that it’s okay. That my anxiety isn’t a ‘bad thing’ it’s just different and I need to learn how to make ‘it work’. I’m slowly accepting that self-love I can control. I do believe that we get self-love, self-worth, mixed up with I’m a good person so I will be happy. I question what self- value is all the time. From how people talk to one another and how society is just throwing ‘fuck’ ‘bitch’ ‘asshole’ or my favorite ‘cunt’ out like its nothing, that it means nothing, thing is if we settle for these types of actions, then do we truly have self-love or self- worth if we just settle and say its okay and not fight for it? This is where I get lost, this is where I get confused, this is where I doubt myself. This is where I break down.

Yet I need to have the courage, the will, the strength, to move on and accept that just because other ‘settle’ for it doesn’t mean that I need to. I’m slowly bringing down my walls. I’m slowly breaking down these walls of confusion, of the past, of people’s opinions, and I’m starting to see that I’m pretty awesome. I’m starting to feel ‘whole’.

The moment I realized that I needed to take the first small step on to wanting to heal, wanting to accept, I realized that this ride, this journey wasn’t going to be easy. I finally realized what it is to question myself. What it is to ask for help, even when I am too stubborn to do so. The moment I took of my narrow blinders off, the moment I realized that it’s okay to cry even when people don’t understand, the moment I my whole body freezes up, I choke, like I’m gasping for air, the moment I realized that it’s okay to really smile, not just fake smile, yet truly smile. That it’s okay!

It’s taken me three days to sit down and just let it all out. I have felt like it’s been one thing after another. Trying to settle down, transitioning to working again, being away from Elijah, truck problems, now Nitro problems because I put the wrong oil in because I have had this cloud of fog and depression over my head I made a poor choice. I have been unmotivated this past week. I have just wanted to pause time. Pause time because I need a break, pause time because I am weak right now, pause time because I have lost my self-love this week. Pause time to catch up. Pause time because I am failing. To pause time to start working on loving myself again. To open up my heart to Derrik again. To finally let these walls down that I have built so high and so strong that now even a thousand grenades can break them down.

There are moments where I have learned that Self-love doesn’t need to be feared, doesn’t need to be a ‘bad thing’. To have self-love is to be worthy of yourself. To choose love over fear. So despite the emotions I may feel, I have to accept that I can love myself. That it is possible.