Love You All The Days

I love being me.

So I want you to think about this? Do you honestly and truly love yourself right here in this moment? 

I hope with all of my heart that the answer is yes.

For many, many, years my answer to that was a resounding “no”. Last year I was looking through my journals, I have many, many, journals, but this one was one of my first. I believe I was thirteen or fourteen. I was also very sad. I talked about how I felt like no one loved me and no one was going to love me. I waxed poetic about a crush that I had who didn’t know I existed. How I was fat an unattractive. I talked about how I wanted to be a fashion designer so that I would finally be beautiful.

My heart ached for that person. Knowing that she would feel that way still almost a decade later. Knowing that in the end she would spend over a third of her life feeling that way. I just wanted to squeeze her tight and tell her:

You don’t have to feel that way.

And if you are feeling that way, right now, I am here to tell you what no one ever told me. You don’t have to hate yourself. You don’t have to hate your body. It is possible to find just a spark of love for yourself and to turn that into something more. Something amazing.

How have your feelings for yourself evolved throughout the years? What are the things that you most love about yourself? How can you improve your relationship with yourself?