Many will talk about the need to love yourself before loving anyone else and I believe this gets misunderstood. You do not -have- to love yourself to be lovable or to love another, there are parts of you that are always seen and often loved. However, you are likely to have unhealthy attachments if you are not secure in your value. When we hold genuine self love in our being we also protect that love the way we protect our outward loves too.
Over the past few days I went into 5 topics which I believe serve as pillars to self love. Boundaries, Advocation, Gratitude, Housekeeping and Feelings. Each of these are important alone and when we have all 5 sturdy and strong, we have self love. This post will be a comprehensive effort to explain how they amount to self love—feel free to go back and read them over if you haven’t for specific details on each. And always feel free to ask questions or discuss my ideas with me.
Developing the 5 pillars mentioned above are essential to healing and self love. I began with boundaries because that is often where (especially wounded) souls struggle the most. Simply being comfortable saying “no” is a powerful boundary. You are worthy of love and respect, even when you do not know you are worthy. Boundaries help protect you from being exhausted by those who take more than they give.
In line with your boundaries comes advocation for yourself. The willingness and courage to speak up for your well-being. The differences here being that boundaries can be unspoken and they protect from discomforts getting in, while advocation is having a voice about what you need and want in life. Learning how to speak up after staying silent has an empowering effect.
Living in gratitude is the glue to it all. When we are grateful for what we have, we stop looking at the world for what we lack. Happiness is not an external force, joy is grown inside our well-being. In gratitude we feel joy and love. Those who remain ungrateful also remain unhappy. It is not happy people who are grateful, it is grateful people who are happy.
Housekeeping and feelings go hand-in-hand, when we learn to honor our feelings we will naturally clean house. Those who benefited from you not having boundaries will not like their access being limited, build boundaries anyway. The journey is individual and the best anyone can do is offer advice or a compassionate ear, each individual has to do the internal work to heal. The more you heal the hurts from life the more you will feel love inside.
If you identify with the neurodivergent community, would appreciate an adult space with a focus on support and betterment, I’d like to invite you to check out my discord server! Where shame, blame and devaluation are discouraged while compassion and personal growth are encouraged. The server is designated mature (18+) and minors are promptly removed. Multiple categories allow Members to decide what sort of content they’d like to see from the server using selections in the #about-you channel after joining. You’re invited!
Salley's Mile ∞ 