You Have To Love Yourself First

I have gotten a lot of comments recently like "have you written anything lately?" "something is missing from my timeline...it’s your blog posts" "do you still have your blog?"
I have written a lot of things lately, I haven't shared them, I just renewed the rights to my blog back in August.

Over the course of quarantine, I have not felt super inspired to write in the way that I used to. If I'm being honest, sometimes I don't know what I'm allowed to say and what I'm not allowed to say. It seems that no matter what, someone gets offended and or someone just must share their unwanted opinion. Needless to say, inspiration has been lacking. A sentiment we can all relate to these days is looking in the pantry or fridge for something to jump out at you that you are interested in eating, but nothing does because you have been cooking and snacking at home for the past 7 months. Food isn’t even exciting anymore.

This time, the inspiration that I have been searching for did not jump out at me in the form of a snack I have been craving. It dawned on me as I was watching my coffee mug go around another time in the microwave and I looked down at my left wrist and saw the words “Love Yourself”.

A lot of people used this quarantine time to do something productive in the form of starting a small business, fulfilling a dream, discovering a new passion, excelling at work, writing a book… or just continuing their blog. For me, I decided to be productive in another way. I decided to be productive in the form of learning to love myself. This all started back in June when I purchased this little bracelet with those 2 simple words. Love Yourself. Easier said than done.

As soon as that little bracelet sat on my wrist, as hard as it was, I started putting myself first and making myself the main character of my life. I immediately began making decisions about my life for myself and to benefit myself. This included several things that I had never done before including ending a severely toxic relationship where I was constantly left with crippling anxiety always wondering if was good enough or going to even get a text back. Never being loved enough for who I was, never getting the love that I truly deserved, and constantly feeling like something was wrong with me. I knew that this was going to be difficult for me, as I have never ended a relationship on my own terms before, I looked at my sister and my closest friends the night before and I said “it isn’t going to be easy for me, but I’m going to do it and I’m going to need you guys to support me” and they did and they still do, they never left my side.

Shortly after this incident I decided, after many years of struggling, to reach out to a doctor about my mental health. All those sleepless nights, the days when I could not pull myself out of bed, the days I could not make eye contact with friends, the countless amount of times I have been made to feel like something was wrong with me, finally made sense. After talking to my doctor for 10 minutes she could already tell that I was suffering from high-functioning anxiety. She prescribed me medicine, something that I was very hesitant to accept. But she explained it to me like this; “people with diabetes can’t just will their diabetes away, they need insulin to help. Anxiety is the same way, you can’t just will your anxiety away. You need to take this medication to get your serotonin levels up where they need to be and then we can start to ween you off the medication slowly. But you need to start before you hit rock bottom”.

Every day I remind myself to “Love Yourself” and take the little white pill. And every day that I do that, I am one step closer to getting better. I have truly never been happier.
My body and brain finally allow me to feel the feelings that I had previously been blocking out because they weren’t “comfortable” or “familiar” which would just cause periods of numbness. I have started putting my energy into relationships that are good for me as opposed to relationships that don’t deserve me. I’ve found a new love for the outdoors, I’ve spent a lot of time in the kitchen, I’ve spent more time with friends and family in the form of monthly and weekly dinners. Because I can “feel” again, I have reconnected with my creative side, writing poetry again, creating videos, and I have even taken up film photography.
​
I choose to love myself every day so that I can be the best version of myself for the good people that I have in my life and so that I can continue to do the little things that bring me so much happiness. Maybe I haven’t been productive with writing [this blog] these past several months. But I have been very productive with learning to love myself… again.  

---