I know it has been a while since I have written a new post! I am so sorry about that. My life has been a whirlwind of working and moving! I am all moved in, unpacked, and ready to roll. I know this is called "Matchmaker Monday", but as I was thinking about my next post for this series I kept coming back to the thought of self love. We all struggle with it at some point in our lives and when we are struggling with self love thats usually the time when we want to find love the most. We want someone to love us because we can't, or we want someone to validate that we are enough, but that is how we attract the wrong people! This is why relationships don't always work because one, or both, of you don't love yourselves first.
Speaking from my own experience, it was heartbreak that caused me to lose sight of loving myself. I would wonder what I did wrong, or what it was about me that he couldn't just love me back. I had not changed, so why did he suddenly fall out of love with me? This is the kind of destructive thinking that lead me down a path of wrong guys and, to be blunt, really bad decisions in sleeping with the wrong ones to validate myself. Anyone relate? I remember once after one of these bad decisions I was sitting at home and I kept thinking to myself that I don't even like him! Why was I so worried about whether he would call me, and why did him calling me have to validate that I mattered?!
I wish I had the answer to give you guys on how to love yourself, but I can tell you how I did it! Maybe it was that last situation, or maybe it was just maturity finally knocking on my brain to remind me how awesome I am. I woke up one morning totally liberated. (lets be real though, I didn't just wake up and love myself) I did, however, just wake up and realize I WANTED to love myself. I decided right then and there that I would commit to putting myself first. Which is what it really takes to love yourself. It is not an easy road by any means, but I knew it was important to me!
First, I made a physical list of all the reasons I did not love myself. This list felt so long and I kept staring at it and thinking "damn Kristin what do you love about yourself?" So, I wrote down a physical list of all of the reasons I did love myself. I wrote down all of the positive things about myself. This list was not long at first. I was new to this whole thing after all, but with every passing day that I committed to putting myself first it grew! I even asked friends their opinions and some, that I am forever grateful for, gave me harsh truth bombs about my own self destructive behavior.
Self love starts completely with you committing to making some changes. I thought a lot about what my friends said and not without getting my feelings hurt, or being supremely mad. Let me tell you, when someone dishes the harsh truth to your face it is not an immediate "omg you are so right" moment. That moment comes much later, sometimes much, much, later. I had to stop all the destructive behavior I was doing and realize what would make me happy, especially in a relationship.
My parents helped me with this part and they probably don't even know it. When you have a dad that treats your mom as if she is the center of his universe and treats you, and your sisters, all the same way, you realize real fast that anything less than that is unacceptable. My mom also treats him the same way. Their love is not a one way street and definitely not without hardships along the way, but you know my favorite thing about them? They have NEVER once in the entire time I have grown up fought in front of me. Which has to be hard because my sisters and I are always around. One of us is constantly there. They have to fight. They have been married for like a million years. Really like 30 something years, but seems forever. That is the kind of love I want and that is the kind of love we all deserve. So, mom and dad, if you are reading this, thank you.
Everyone is deserving of unconditional love, affection, and loyalty. Our family and real friends are most often the mirrors we do not wish to look in, but we should. My path of self love taught me that I want to be taken on dates. That I definitely have rules about intimacy now, and I know the kind of respect and love I need, want, and deserve. It also took me on a wild path of self discovery, but that is a much longer story and one I will share with you at a different time!
How did you learn to love yourself?