The importance of loving yourself

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent". When I read this quote over a decade ago, I thought to myself: "who would actually allow someone to make them feel inferior?" Years later, the meaning behind this statement became clear as I observed people mistreated by their families, friends, and partners. No one blatantly consents to being mistreated. However, silence speaks just as loudly as words do. In saying and doing nothing when being disrespected, you indirectly "consent" or agree with the treatment. In saying this, I do not negate the stronghold abuse has on the mind of children, who may be unable to defend themselves.  Ultimately, their childhood experiences will affect their response to how they are treated as adolescents or adults. Abuse causes a lot of people to not love themselves, because they have been told so. If this is your case, you must learn to develop self-love, without approval from others because seeking approval will be detrimental. 

Now for those who have been shown love as children, but still have not managed to love themselves, you are giving up your right to be esteemed as a respectable being. The way you see yourself is how others will see you. Loving yourself means embracing the totality of your being and not just your best features. Your self-love is the standard against which others will treat you. Hence why those with low-self esteem tend to be abused and mistreat repeatedly. So although the people who come in your life differ, your low standard remains the same therefore all these different people treat you the same way. 

When you love yourself, you acknowledge that you are not a perfect being and in fact need not be in order to command respect. It does not make you haughty or prideful, it rather gives you the confidence needed to endure the challenges of life. 

When you love yourself, you do not settle for less, you know when enough is enough, you would not prove yourself to anyone but you, you would not try to fit in, your would not compare yourself to others, you would not let anyone abuse you, EVER! 

Loving yourself means more than dressing in expensive apparel, and surrounding yourself with material possessions. It transcends the eye, because it is a void that is filled from within, yet others can see it on the outside by the way you portray yourself. 

Love yourself, 

Be empowered, 

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