Love Yourself


I know, serious eye roll. Oprah is gone, Iyanla is trying to fix your life, and Steve Harvey wants you to think like a man. But seriously this is the first step. I have a very good friend that whenever us girls would get together to lament our dating woes could never relate. We would talk about him not calling back, a guy taking us on ridiculous “non-dates”. Whenever we brought up such male shenanigans she would say in all sincerity, “I have never experienced that”. What was it about her that kept these disastrous stories amusing anecdotes to which she could not relate? My guess is self esteem and self love.

This particular friend always knew what she wanted in life, what she deserved, and how she should be treated. She never questioned her beauty or her body shape. She never hung her words in self doubt or self loathing. Every time this woman walks past a mirror, she stops and gives a slight nod of approval. She was never going to accept bullshit from a man. We are now well into middle age and men she dated in high school and college still call requesting dates or sincerely offering to leave spouses for her. This woman is confident and before she ever loved a man, she loved herself.

My friend is pretty, but there are millions of women that are prettier. My friend has a gorgeous shape, but there are women that are curvier. I know this because Facebook insists on recommending them to me as friends based on the fact that all of my male friends have friended them because, well, their ass is the focus of their profile pic. We have all met women that could probably walk a runway or video shoot with a solid degree of success, but for whatever reason live in a world of self-doubt and self- hate. A world, where her ass or breasts are the most important part of her being.

Loving yourself is sometimes hard. It really is. There are all of these messages on commercials, billboards, and in magazines telling you as a woman are not good enough. You are not tall enough so wear these heels. Your hair is not the right texture so perm it. Your hair is not the right texture so relax it. Your clothes are not sexy and trendy enough so buy these. You are not smart enough so enroll in an insanely overpriced and non-resultative technical program. The messages are incessant.

There are a series of multi-billion dollar industries built on you not liking yourself but you have to tune them out. You will never have someone love you correctly, in the way you deserve until you love yourself. I repeat, you will never have someone love you correctly in the way you deserve to be loved until you love yourself. If you do not think you are worthy of love, how can you expect someone else?

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