I had to learn how to love myself, by not having loved myself in letting others use and abuse all that I gave away without boundaries, depleting any reserves for myself.
I didn't have the tools within me to know how to love myself until it was acquired by learning it for myself the hard way, over and over again until it became a tool I now wield to protect myself from allowing others to use and abuse me.
"You can lie down for people to walk on you and they will still complain that you're not flat enough." - Mature Gambino
By allowing others to walk all over me, I learned to stand straight up.
By allowing others to hold me down, I learned to grow a backbone to get back up.
By allowing others to talk over me, I learned to speak up.
By allowing others to speak down to me, I learned to rise up to meet them eye to eye.
By allowing others to treat me inferior, I learned to find my worth from within.
By allowing others to drain my energy, I learned to change the flow of my energy from them.
By allowing others to take from my soul, I learned to be that much more solid in self.
By allowing others to drag me into battles, I learned to embody my inner warrior.
By allowing others to write my story, I learned to be my own advocate to write my own.
Because I allowed these things in not knowing how to stand up for myself, how to set healthy boundaries, and expect better treatment - I was not loving myself.
It was by allowing these things to deplete me for so long, that I learned how to put my foot down, grow a backbone, and become empowered in who and what I allow into my life.
No apologies.
This is what it means to love oneself - to know how you should be treated well with care, and to believe that you are deserving of it from others. Because you have first done this for yourself.
What you allow, is welcoming it to continue.
May you learn to love yourself with a fierceness, for then you will know how to love others with the same protective passion.
With LOVE. Always,
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