self love is necessary love by jasmine mitchell

​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.