Self Love Defined by You

By Susan Binnie

Self Love…

When I think about it I realize it is one of those things I know very little about. I grew up in a loving home, and I felt love. Or at least I think I did. Being with others is being kind and caring and doing for them. Making someone’s life easier by helping them to be happy. This is love… Isn’t it? Holding our children tightly in our arms and providing all the essentials of life. This is love… isn’t it?

Self Love… Hmmm what is that, what does that really mean? I am not going to try and define love or self love for anyone else. As I believe that your definition of any word is for you and how you decide to live it. For me self love is one of those things like self care. When I care for others, I care for me. When I love others, I love me. When I do for others I do for me. When I hug someone, I am hugging me.

As I settle in and write this story, I realize that most of my life has been doing for others, loving others, being there for others. Giving and not receiving. When I was younger I gave advice to everyone, helping them along their journey. Thinking back there was no one there to help me, no one to give me advice! I realize it was more about me not knowing how to ask for help, not knowing how to truly receive. Through the years, I have loved and have been loved… Loved in many different ways. My parents love me, my husband loves me, my children, my grandchildren, my friends… Many different forms of love, all from those who warm my heart… I am grateful as I know love and I am loved.

Self love for me truly happened in 2020. Hard to believe, even for me. I am 54 years old and I have finally discovered that loving me is a thing. Something that perhaps I knew earlier. The impact of loving myself in 2020 was a necessity and I discovered it at the time when I needed it the most. 2020 will be in history books forever as the year of uncertainty for so many. For me, I decided it was going to be a year of learning, growing and trusting. It was all about self… self-discovery, self-awareness, and self-love.

I am extremely fortunate (during the pandemic in particular) to live in a home with my husband, my two daughters and their significant others. At first I thought oh lord help me, how do I survive in a house with 6 adults. Now I am truly grateful... They were there for me, I was there for myself and I was forced to set boundaries, we all were. Setting boundaries in part meant saying no to others… Saying no to others actually meant I was saying yes to me! Learning to love me enough to say Yes to me. It was a different concept for sure, and it made me realize all of the things I did not do for me. Spending time with me, just me.Hugging me, just me. Loving me… Self discovery and uncovering my giftswas a true blessing. I realized that the world and those in it will always judge me. Judge me cause I am different, as they compare themselves to me, they will judge. I stopped letting what others thought about me, and how they may judge me, bother me a long time ago. What I realized... I was truly bothered by how badly I judged myself. In a world where I now saw me online as others saw me, the judgement towards self came out stronger than ever before.

Self Judgement has grown into self love in a way I never really expected. My world opened up wider than I could have ever imagined, when I started to learn more about my gifts and released judgement by learning to be more grateful for the little things I realized that truly seeing me meant to look deep inside at the good, the bad and the ugly. All of the things that make me the person who I am today. The person I got to know and realize that the way I see myself is totally different than the way others see me. Perhaps for some it is similar, but, it will always be different. The more I love who I am and the more I exude that love to the world, the happier they get to see me. The more they see me and love who I am, perhaps the more they will love themselves. The Ripple effect is real… We are all connected energetically and the higher we can raise each other's vibrations, the better the world we live in will be.

My biggest discoveries this past year, and there were many, are;

- When you hug someone else, you are truly being hugged. When you are virtually hugging someone else, you are actually hugging yourself, loving yourself just a little bit more than you thought you did.

- The more you love you, the more capacity you have to love others and the more you know how you want others to actually love you.

- You are human and you are not alone. If you are feeling like no one is loving you, love yourself and realize others are human too and they could be feeling exactly the way you do.

Always remember you can not control the world or anyone in it… all you can control is you. Feel the emotions and the love you deserve from within.

You are worthy, you are enough, and you are loved. The story you tell you is up to you. When you decide that you are worthy of love, you are enough and you have received love since the day you were born, just by being you… then you will realize what self love is all about.

This is when you can start to decide what self love really means to you!

To find out more about your journey and getting in deep to feeling empowered to be you and loving you, contact me.

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