Love Yourself! ❤

Happy Saturday!

For many of you who know me, you should have assumed that this was going to be my first post! This is the first time I'm going to talk about this, and it definitely won't be the last time that I'm going to talk about this, because this is probably the most important message that anyone needs to hear and know at all times.

LOVE YOURSELF.

It's that simple right? I should be done right there! It's only two words; only three syllables. So why does it take people so long to fall in love with themselves? Let's explore this deeper, together. Let me just warn you, though. Getting deeper may be too harsh for some readers and I apologize if you're offended by my words. 

Now for many people that know me, they'll also know that I'm not the biggest fan of high school relationships. Before we start pointing fingers and suggesting that the reason for that is because I myself didn't have too much luck in finding "love" in high school, let me tell you that experience through others is almost as powerful as the experiences I could've faced myself. Countless times friends have abandoned their positions as confidants and advisers because of their obsession with their new "love" and that hurt me almost as much as the heartbreak they undoubtedly suffered at the end of their problematic and unhealthy relationship. 

Don't get me wrong. Love is great. Love is nice. Human interaction is extremely nice and most people crave it, whether it be physically, mentally, or emotionally, but the reason why these relationships didn't last and were built on unsolid ground in the first place is because the two people entering into the relationship didn't love themselves enough already at the onset.

The other person that you are romantically or sexually involved with is their own separate identity with their own sets of insecurities, problems, morals, thoughts, and life. Using this other person to make yourself feel whole because you don't think you can sort through your own problems by yourself is just going to cause a lot of problems down the road; your insecurity and lack of confidence will become evident in trust issues which will hurt your partner or your problems that you try to hide in order to make the other person happy or, at least, content will come up when all of your lies stop adding up. You can't spend your entire existence being a succubus or allowing someone to leech off of you, or worse if the both of you become a symbiotic cesspool of chaotic unhealthiness and ultimate unhappiness. No. Relationships like these are wastes of time because either they will end soon or you will spend your whole life unhappy and wondering what could've been if you hadn't met your partner in the state that you were in. When you start questioning the integrity of your relationship so far down the road that you're trapped in a problematic marriage, that's when other issues start surfacing such as divorce or cheating.

Back to the high school relationship part of this: I think it's safe to say that high school is a time for personal growth and reflection and also a time to focus on what truly matters in order to prepare for life after high school. I think that distracting yourself from personal growth, especially at this crucial time in your life is just completely unnecessary, and the biggest distraction for high schoolers is the social pressure to find a partner to share a romantic or sexual relationship with. In a lot of cases these relationships could possibly end up making the people better or in special cases the couples do stay together forever, but in most cases I've seen people just end up getting hurt because high schoolers don't have a total grasp on who they are as people yet in order to create a healthy relational environment for their significant other and themselves. School work and bettering yourself at this point in life should be your first priority, not attempting to keep someone else happy. Family is also super duper important, but I'll save that for another post in the future.
Like I said, though, there are some couples who end up bettering each other, and that's super cool, but we should be more concerned with the aspect of loving yourself. 

AND JUST BECAUSE I'M TALKING ABOUT PARTNER TO PARTNER RELATIONSHIPS DOESN'T MEAN THAT I'M EXCLUDING FRIENDSHIPS. In fact, some friendships could follow these same patterns of succubi, leeches, and unhealthy symbiotic relationships. I Know I've definitely fell victim to these types of friendships, but I've come out a better person having learned from these experiences. (Notice how I didn't say "mistakes", regret and mistakes are going to be a topic later, but for now let me assure you that I don't regret these friendships because of the personal growth that happened as a consequence of them.)

But moving on from the negative aspects of not loving yourself; how can you learn to love yourself? 

I personally find solace in God, but this post isn't about preaching my love for him or the Holy Trinity, no, that will also be a post for the future, but even that isn't the only thing I find comfort in; tangible positives are also helpful. (All of these will probably be featured in a full length blog post sometime in the future):

• Be recreational: benefit the community as well as yourself by volunteering or working in your local area. You'll meet a ton of great people and learn a large set of skills and go through a lot of experiences that will help not only you, but a ton of other people.
• Surround yourself with positive people who care about you and your well being and set yourself up with a couple of anchors in your life. 
• Don't be afraid to change aspects of yourself whether it be developing a more positive personality or surrounding yourself with more positive people or changing up your style.
• Get to know your family better.
• And possibly, the most important, be honest with yourself and others. Honesty prevents people from long-term hurt and betrayal and is just overall better than holding in secrets or not telling people about your problems.

And of course, if you need someone to talk to, or need advice of any sort, don't be afraid to email me sometime! (Hopefully one day soon I'll be able to figure how to put a "Leave a Message" section on here, but college is a little hectic so we'll be going through this journey of learning and discovering together.)

More on the topic of Loving Yourself will be posted at a later time. There's so much more that I could say, but I don't want to overload anyone with all the information I want to share. Love Yourself Part 2 will probably appear in early 2016 with more of a focus on building self-confidence.

Thanks for reading this week's post!

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Next Post: "Abandonment."

When?: Saturday, November 14, 2015.