Love yourself, first

Truth_EP9

Host: Assata Imani
May 7, 2018

Plot Synopsis: Episode 9 emphasizes the importance of building a relationship with yourself before pursuing a relationship with a man/woman. When you love yourself you become a better version of yourself. When you love yourself, you attract better to yourself. When you love yourself, you sustain healthy, mutually powerful relationships; as opposed to unhealthy, overly-attached, draining relationships. When you love yourself, you become “Love’s Mirror.” Host, Assata Imani reveals her self-love journey, in hopes of inspiring listeners to love themselves first. After all, you cannot pour from an empty glass.

Love’s Mirror by Allie Michelle

You want someone to look into your soul and love all that you are.

Do you look into your soul and love all that you are?

You want someone to fully accept, support, and care for you.

Do you fully accept, support and care for yourself?

True love begins intrinsically.

Only then can two independent flames come together and ignite a wild fire.

I have noticed a pattern amongst woman, including myself: sometimes we don’t love ourselves first. Why is that? Why don’t we value ourselves? Why don’t we see the beauty that everyone else sees? Why don’t we see our potential, our greatness, our success? The excellence, intelligence, and independence within ourselves? Why don’t we see what others can see?

One thing that I have realized throughout my self-love journey is that I can never be an asset to anyone if I do not love myself. I can never be an asset to anyone if I do not see my value-as a woman, as a professional and as a successor. If I am not here for myself, I cannot totally be there for someone else.

This topic is deeper than just self-care and self-acceptance.It is more so an emphasis on self-respect, because when you don’t love yourself you tolerate nonsense and irrational behavior from other people. The primary excuse for this is because you “love” them.

Do you really love them? You don’t even love yourself! How can you distinguish the two if you have not yet built a relationship with yourself?

For my ladies who tolerate BS from men who make it clear that they don’t see your value. Why are you tolerating that? Why are you not setting a standard for yourself? Why are you allowing yourself to get ran through and walked on? Because you don’t love yourself.

And for my women who have gotten their hearts broken and try to repair their heart by having sex with random men. That is not a cure! If anything, that does more damage to you. To your dignity, to your sense of self-respect. To your body, to your mind.

You de-value yourself when you throw yourself at any and every one. You are not for everyone. Until you love yourself, you will never realize that.

I just elaborated on two categories of women who do not love themselves.

If you can identify with any of these women, it is time to let go of those ways and dedicate time to start loving yourself.

Why is it that you have become so upset about a previous situation that you have forgotten who you are? You have lost yourself. You have forgotten you worth. You have forgotten to love yourself.

Having sex out of spite of an ex who hurt you is not loving yourself.

Loving yourself is a learning process and a growing process. You need to take time to yourself, to better yourself. To grow out of that stage. You must value yourself in order to elevate.

There’s another type of woman:

Single, grinding, focused on her purposeorSingle, just living to get by with no purpose.

However, neither of these women love themselves.

Just because you don’t tolerate BS and are focused on your career does not mean that you love yourself.

Some of us are overly focused on external success but have not taken a moment to look internally.

You can do right by yourself, all while not even loving yourself. And that is a sad reality for many women today.

If you can identify with this category of women, it is time to greet yourself with love. It is time todedicate a moment each day to building a stronger relationship with yourself.

These 3 categories of women all have one thing in common: They do not love themselves. They do not value themselves, they do not see their worth or how great they are. They do not see how much of a treasure their body is. And how much of a treasure their heart and mind is. They don’t find themselves sacred.

When you don’t consider yourself to be sacred, no one else will see you as sacred. When you don’t consider yourself to be exclusive, no one else will see you as exclusive.

You may be asking yourself: How can I love myself?

It’s a journey, no one can really tell you: “This is how you love yourself …”

I can identify with every woman in different ways. Everyone’s experiences are different, but there is a common pattern of things that we tolerate and irrational things that we do-solely based off of a lack of self-love.

So now I want to share my journey to loving myself. Each day I love, value and embrace myself more.

Some aspects of my journey may be beneficial or relative to your journey. Whatever you can take from my journey, take it. I want to see every woman loving themselves.

When you love yourself, you have no reason to hate anyone else.

Complement each other, embrace each other.

Women who consistently hate on other women do not love themselves.

(This could be considered a fourth category)

So back to my journey to falling in love with myself:

#1: I write a letter to God each day. (“Dear God,…) I write these letters because God is within me and I must connect with the divinity within me in order grow into the woman that I need to be. To fully understand what I knowI need to do. I let God know that I aware of the fact that I need guidanceto get where I need to be. I express my fears, my insecurities, my doubts. I express my rights and wrongs.Our relationship is inseparable.(Build a relationship with God because God is within you).

To fully love yourself you must first build a relationship with yourself. With yourself comes God. The more connected you are to the internalaspects of yourself (heart, mind, spirit), the more connected you are to a higher power (God). And vice versa.

#2: I have become more aware of myself. What do you like about yourself? What don’t you like about yourself? Why?

The people who you surround yourself with: Why are they in your life? Are they an assetor a liability? Do they bring you joy or pain? Does your circle distract you or motivate you?

Make sure that there is balance amongst everything.

If the bad outweighs the good…take action. Ask yourself: Why are these people really around me? Get your circle together.

Who you connect yourself with can determine how you see yourself and how others see you.Make sure that the people who you surround yourself with are also on journey to elevation and self-love (not lost, self-hate). You do not need lost, unloving people in your life. Those are the people who do detrimental things to others.

You must become more aware of yourself and your circle. (What is your purpose? What is their purpose?)

#3: I have to be consistent with myself. If you are not consistent with yourself you cannot expect anyone else to be consistent with you. You must be consistent with yourself first.

“Walk how you talk” (Migos).

If you know you are a woman of high value you should only connect with a man of substance. A man who sees your value, who sees your worth and acknowledges the woman that you are.

You deserve to be loved.

Only connect with people who value your time. Only connect with people who value you.

Everyone you surround yourself with are ultimately a reflection of you. Surround yourself with people who aspire to grow. Surround yourself with people who aspire to love and value themselves.

Understand that nothing and no one is worth losing yourself over.

#4: I grounded myself in my purpose. When you ground yourself in your craft you obtain tunnel vision.Only people who are worthy of your space, time, and energy will surround you.

It is a beautiful thing when a woman loves herself and works every day to grow into the woman that she knows she needs to be. (A woman who loves herself first)

When you love yourself first, you are then able to be an asset to others.

Women are so divine. We are like flowers, roses. There is something so potent and special about a rose. The fertile ground that the rose arises from…it only surrounds itself with other roses. Roses that have grown (built themselves up) from the same soil.

This concept is also relative to the people who you connect with. Be sure that they are built in common soil. Make sure that they have the same morals and value system that you have. When you do that you exemplify love yourself.

Ultimately, what I have learned is: when you love yourself, you attract better people to yourself.(Better friendships, and relationships).

When you love yourself, people who are no longer in alignment with you will cancel themselves out (mentioned in Episode 1).

There is no need to chase anyone.

Because you are now connected to God: everyone who is meant for you will remain with you. And everyone who is not for you will gradually exit your life (when this occurs do not question it, embrace it — GOD GOT YOU).

Eventually true love will be amongst you, inside of you and reflective of you. You will become love itself.

“At your best you are love.” (Aaliyah)

I associate love with affinity.Affinity refers to commonalities amongst nature. Everything in nature has to grow. Everything in nature is naturally connected. Each element goes through a similar process. A process that is similar to love.

As you go through this process, you connect with similar people. And you grow with them, just like various elements of nature grow together.

(AFFINITY)

With affinity comes sustainability. A relationship that is so interconnected, it will never break.Build a relationship of that caliber with yourself and eventually you will naturally build a relationship of that caliber with the right person/people.

Love yourself first.You will become “Love’s Mirror.”

You will see yourself and love yourself in that depth. You will grow with yourself. You will be patient with yourself (in that depth). As a result, you will build relationships of depth and substance. Because you are of depth and substance. (Deeper than the surface)