Do you love yourself?
Love can be tricky and if you’re the kind of person who loves to give it all away there is a possibility that you’ve left little for yourself. If you’ve ever found yourself emotionally depleted after helping someone else, lonely after a long conversation or consistently searching for ways to make others happy are you loving yourself or giving it all away?
If you’re giving it away you’re not alone. In the past month I’ve worked with numerous women who never noticed that they gave everything they had (emotionally and physically) to everyone else and when the day was over they had nothing left for themselves. Do you find yourself giving away your time by always saying “yes” when you really want to say “no.” Do you show up for everyone else when you shouldn’t have because you were already tired and overwhelmed? Do you consistently put the needs of everyone else in front of your own?
If you do, you’ve probably hit your breaking point before. You’ve found yourself rolled up in a ball, screaming on the kitchen floor in a messy, fit of rage. Tears roll down your eyes as you wail about how “nobody gets it” and “why do I have to do it all.” But somehow, when the tears have dried up and you get yourself up off the floor you revert to the same behaviors, over and over again.
You give your love to everyone else and never give it to yourself. You wind up depleted and yet you still blame someone else.
When will you love yourself enough to know that you come first? This shit’s gotta stop! Today you become your #1. You are your own priority.
I know you’re probably wondering “how can I be there for myself when I have so many responsibilities?” Can you imagine what life would look like if you had more time? If you had more love to give?
You can have all of this and more by giving what you give to everyone else, directly to yourself. Think of yourself as a well of water. When you give and give the well becomes dry. But what happens when you no longer give it all away? Miraculously, there’s water left.
And as the seasons change, the snow melts and the rain storms fade away the well has been replenished. But it doesn’t just fill itself overnight. Just as with most of life, it takes time. So if you find that your well has run dry and you have little love left to give, slow down, give less and give more to yourself.
There’s no reason to try and be everything to everyone else when you have little to give and not enough for yourself. It is only when you slow down that you’ll begin to see that the very things you we’re running towards were meaningless and as you rushed to complete them and make everyone else happy you slowly lost touch with what meant the most. But today you have the choice to choose and when you do I hope you choose to love yourself.