Self Love…

“Self love, self respect, self worth. There is a reason they all start with ‘self.’ You cannot find them in anyone else.” ~unknown

For much of my life I teetered between sort of loving and respecting me and searching for love, respect and worth in other people’s opinions of me. I defined myself by being loved or not being loved, and defined those narrowly, I had a partner or I didn’t. That singular definition of being loved built me up and tore me down. I wasn’t worth anything to anyone, least of all to myself, if I wasn’t loved by a man, preferably the man I thought I loved.
Because of this warped sense of self, I thought I loved people who I really didn’t. Because of this warped sense of self, I fought harder than most would to keep relationships. Because of the warped sense of self, I hung onto promises, and words, even the slightest inkling of someone wanting me kept me around longer than was probably necessary. I stayed in relationships long after they were over, both marriages were testaments to my inability to find self love, I begged and graveled for any morsel of love and affections they could give.
The idea that you should love yourself first was foreign to me, even after reading and understanding the importance of loving yourself, I struggled with seeing me in a loving way. My strong judgements of me, that inner critic took over. I wasn’t worthy of self love just like I wasn’t worthy of anyone else’s love. Everyone was going to figure out that I wasn’t this nice person, I wasn’t kind or generous. I was a bitch. At least that was how I thought of myself for a long time.
Then one day it clicked. As I learned more about why I was judging others, I realized my judgements were a reflection of my lack of self love, self respect and self worth. I was unhappy with me, and cast those doubts onto others, freely and consistently at times. When I pulled those judgements apart, I saw my reflection, the judgements were mine.
I recently had an amazing experience of truly feeling lighter. You may recall last summer, my cousin and I had a healing session while we was in California. The vision at that time was a hot air balloon. The premise was that when I finally got rid of the self doubt, the critic saying “you are not good enough,” the hot air balloon would lose more than half of the sandbags and I would vibrate on a high frequency. This new consciousness would carry me far, and be where I would meet my soulmate, who was waiting at that higher frequency. That was all validated by a sign, a hot air balloon wine caddy at one of the vineyards we visited that day!
This past week, as I was driving, I had this overwhelming sense of casting that self doubt out to sea once and for all. I had used that gremlin as a focus during my healing to break through it, get rid of it! I saw the hot air balloon drop 7 of the 10 sandbags and I saw me soaring to new heights. I physically felt myself get lighter, the shoulders bearing no weight, feeling free. I could see the balloon taking off and I saw me flying as high, if not higher, than some of the people I know who I think do vibrate on a higher frequency.
At that moment, I realized that I was free of the weight of that critic. It no longer had the same hold on me that it once did.
I do love who I am, who I am evolving to. I do respect who I am and how I react. I do see my worth in this world. And I see all of that without judgement. I see it for what it is, for who I am.
Self love, self respect, self worth. All found within myself.