Let us BEGIN with ‘I’: Every morning I think of myself as a stepping stone on a pathway of self-discovery. In an ever changing world, where nothing is constant, there has to be ways to mend our broken self. I found that there is only one thing that heals every problem, and that is: to know how to love yourself.
When people start to love themselves more each day, it’s amazing how their lives get better. They feel better. They get the jobs they want. They have the money they need. Their relationships either improve, or the negative ones dissolve and new ones begin. The silver lining of every dark cloud seems easier to discover.
It’s a very simple premise—loving yourself. So many of us hide from ourselves and we don’t even know who we are. We don’t know what we feel; we don’t know what we want. To get the answer of each question, we have to start by discovering ourselves first. Life is a voyage of self discovery and we have the ability to change for the better by loving and taking care of ourselves first.
It’s not selfish at all. We have to start loving ourselves enough to love other people. We can really help the planet when we come from a space of great love and joy on an individual basis.
To me, love is a deep appreciation. When I talk about loving ourselves, I mean having a deep appreciation for who we are. We accept all the different parts of ourselves – our little peculiarities, the embarrassments, the things we may not do so well, and all the wonderful qualities too.
Unfortunately, many of us will not love ourselves until we lose the weight, or get the job, or get the raise, or the boyfriend, or whatever. We often put conditions on our love. But we can change. We can love ourselves as we are, how we are!
We are in the midst of enormous individual and global change. I believe that all of us who are living at this time have no option but to be a part of these changes, to bring about change and to transform the world from the old way of life to a more loving and peaceful existence.
Today is the day you can love yourself totally with no expectations. Love is something we can choose, the same way we choose anger, or hate, or sadness. We can choose to forgive someone who hurt us and begin to finally heal. We can choose to be grateful for what we have. We can choose love. It’s always a choice within us, with us. The only choice which remains mandatory for survival is to realise our own worth first. Rejections or failures do not define us. Every fall will pave the way for a better tomorrow. If only we realise our own worth we can value the world around. I love you is a very assuring statement but ‘I love I’ is stronger than what we can ever imagine.
Incidentally, the alphabet ‘U’ is placed much after ‘I’. Let us begin to love... Let us begin with ‘I’. Happy Valentine’s Day to US!
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