​So, I was hanging out with my sister today, and we just started talking about our lives. We discussed recent changes, different things pertaining to personal goals that we were setting, and our moves in the making. Then, we listened to her podcast and they were discussing self-love. A lot of valid points were made, and some good subjects were brought up. The whole thing provoked me to think myself on what self-love means to me, what it really is, and how to get there.

I believe that you must love yourself before you can love anyone else properly. If you aren’t comfortable with who you are, you can’t be “yourself” with anyone else fully. If you don’t love you, you can’t even be yourself with you fully. But, how do we get to love ourselves if we don’t know how? Well, you have to start at where you came from: God. You have to know Him and love Him before you can really love yourself because He has all the answers to who you are and what He placed inside of you. He knows you better than you know you, no matter how much you think you know yourself. (You ever done something so wild but lit and you were like “Bruh! I aint eeeeven know I could do dat!! Wtw!! Yea, God did. ;)

If I said reading your bible is a good place to start, I’d feel like a really cliché Christian right now... I guess that’s how I’m going to feel because it is essential. If you google “crazy stories in the bible” or something along those lines, you’ll probably find some stories of amazing people that God used to really show them who they were through Him. Reading those stories may intrigue you to ask, “Well, what about me?” Then, you pray. You just ask Him, coming to Him completely open and honest. Tell Him what you do and don’t like, what you want to accomplish and where you’ve fallen, and ask Him to bring you peace and wisdom to do what you were made to do. He’ll whisper to you the many cool things about you. He’ll help you understand why you went through certain situations and how you survived. Then, you’ll think about all those things and become inspired to try liking yourself again. You’ll start to make daily affirmations like, “Today is going to be and good day, and I’m going to do something really cool I’ve never done before.” You’ll start to actually care for yourself more because you’ll see a reason to. You’ll also draw closer to God as He reveals Himself to you, using you. You’ll eventually see how your greatest testimony was your own life. You’ll be proud of your journey and your process. It will be a process, but the further you go, the better the story in the book of life.

Self-love is about cherishing and loving the God within yourself. Note: you are not a god nor will you ever be. Though, as long as you are a part of God, you’ll always be great.
 

Time to check-in.
Huh?
Check this:
We all talk about wanting the truth, but honestly, do we really want the truth. Of course, we say it but then it seems like once we get it. We all of a sudden become naïve to what it is and question who it is because of our own unwillingness to be able to accept it for what it is. We discriminate against the truth like a mad man then end up looking like the bad man when it’s publicly recognized when in turn, we could have accepted and shifted to create a space of it in our lives. But truth cannot be understood without the vulnerability of self being present and hungry for it.

To understand truth, you must be willing to first accept its validity. Truth is the inevitable that has taken place already.  Truth is what is and shall always be. Truth is what we run from because we fear what it holds will hurt or force change on us when we least want it to, so we abandon it and “search” for another truth. We search long and hard to not accept these terms of current happenings and in turn ultimately still come up more disappointed by the fact we’ve only lied to ourselves that there is something that wasn’t supposed to be or that there isn’t something that’s been staring at us the whole time.

With truth comes change. They go hand in hand when required. So, change in its own is an uncomfortable truth and is unlikely to happen for one who hasn’t understood and accepted its terms and conditions. In order to change, you must accept the things you can’t, and give it to God. In order to change, you must get over your own idea of what you thought was supposed to be and flow with what is. In order to grow, you must first get rid of the old way of doing things. In order to grow, you must experience uncomfortable.

What undeniable truths have you tried to force into the “lie” category? What level of comfortably have you reached in the areas of your life that require your uncomfortable decisions to manifest truth, blessings and new wisdom? Are you finally willing to walk through the fire without the fear of the burn or has the lack of flexibility you’ve made in your life hindered you from your own defrost?

It’s time to check-out now. The hotel was only for a weekend.
 

​*Inserts typewriter noise* What are about to read is accumulation of multiple conversations either based in inquisitiveness, personal reference or perspective. It is some out of my own personal growth and areas of vulnerability.
 
The current societal state that world “functions” in very dichotomous in nature.  From political views, race, to even views on relationships. It has taught us to have a very polarized nature of thinking and most people’s stream of consciousness tend to lie on one end of an extreme. Rarely do we like to acknowledge that there that we have view from both sides and that there are healthy mediums, that outside of things being black and white that sometimes grey exists as well. And to go a step further we don’t focus enough on the consistent effort it requires to maintain the balance of a healthy medium which brings us to talking point: Healthy Boundaries!
 
Polarized thinking creates by societal norms have taught us to either A: Give everything you have, or B: Self comes first.  I find this to be an area of vulnerability for people (myself included)  because if you give;  you are always giving (which yields great reward)… and giving and after a while you find that you are exhausted (physically, mentally, spiritually) ,but if you are on the other end of the spectrum, me always comes first no matter what the situation. The question then becomes, how do I balance being able to give while still keeping myself a priority. The healthy medium.
 
In my discussions about healthy boundaries, there was one common denominator in each conversation. There needed to be a clear definition or identifying point of a healthy personal boundaries and an emotional wall. So, of course me being me, I had to look up the definition to have a starting point. 
 
Boundary- Something that indicates or fixes a limit or extent
Wall- Something that acts as a barrier or defense
 
I realized from this that people use these terms interchangeably in their lives and don’t realize the significant difference between the two. 
 
I found that when discussing emotional wall everyone discussed that emotional walls keep people out, but they also keep you in. It was also discussed that fears, trauma, hurt, heartbreak, and insecurities from either the past or present are the brick and mortar to our walls. An emotional wall is a misguided boundary rooted in fear. Usually anyone who referenced a wall talked about self protection from the things previously listed, and that usually fear of those things are what usually keep the person behind the wall and that as a result the person becomes so intertwined from spending time behind the wall with their fears, trauma, hurt, heartbreak and insecurities that it becomes a reality to the person.
 
When talking about healthy boundaries, I found that most people talked about self-awareness and make self-care a priority. Self-care and selfishness are not the same! I repeat self-care and selfishness are NOT the same thing. Healthy boundaries allow for you to keep the bad out and the good in. It’s about keeping yourself intact by not allowing others or life circumstances to jeopardize who you are as a person. Healthy boundaries means being in tune with yourself and your emotions and giving yourself permission to communicate consistently what you will and will not accept in order to maintain your being and peace. It requires you to be direct and consistently maintain your boundaries which requires constant effort. Healthy boundaries are a consistent practice of self-awareness in order to maintain self-respect.
 
I believe a lot of people have built walls and called them boundaries either out of a lack understanding unwillingness to find the source of root issues or being too comfortable and best friends to our fears and insecurities that they have become an everyday reality. Boundaries are a way to honor the person that you are. An emotional wall hides behind the hurts of the past. Healthy boundaries show growth and maturity and willingness to deal and move on from the past while emotional walls lives in constant fear of becoming separated from the person they hold prisoner.  My hope is that we move from having emotional walls to health boundaries with the understanding that tearing down emotional walls is a process and maintaining healthy boundaries is continual conscious effort.