To Love Ourselves First Before We Can Love Others

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of my first posts on this blog was a few years back when I really didn't have any determined drive to keep a consistent blog. As I've gotten older, I've grown to see that making a conscious effort in spreading wisdom is a noble thing to do....albeit one that's a little difficult since there are so many different people voicing their own definition of wise.

 

Truth be told...I'm not even sure that mine is always correct, but I try to keep as open as a perspective as I can and go from that point.

 

This piece is about the very overstated cliché phrase that "Before you can love others, you must first love yourself." How many people have only heard this as an adult from your friends who are consoling you after a particularly bad break up? I know I have. And then it hit me. Why didn't we hear this as children? Well the fact is that we may have heard this said differently, or that the adults in our lives as kids felt that the word love shouldn't be mentioned. Yet they knew how it was to be young and experiencing multiple emotions through those particularly crazy hormonal years. Maybe once you hit a certain age, you really forget what it's like to be a kid like they say in Peter Pan.

 

As adults, we yearn for connection in different ways. Mark Manson has mentioned in a few of his scintillating pieces about how men and women think and act based upon their psychological and emotional needs respective to their gender. But I'm going to go further back and maybe point a finger at a different culprit. I'm going to point it at how society has shaped how teenager's date in today's age. I'm sure you remember your first crush. Probably as a young kid and you may have chased each other around the playground and teased each other, pretending you didn't like each other when you really did. Then this evolved into your first girlfriend/boyfriend a few years later. You giggled at the lunch table, held hands and snuck a kiss before class, passed notes....this sounds really cheesy and probably pretty tame I know....but it felt innocent and fun. What wasn't realized at the time was the devastation caused by the first break up would lead to one's first desensitization to what was being done to the heart. 

 

*Now I'll intercede here and say that I know I may get some hate for portraying the heart as a feeling organ and I'm misconstruing the scientific properties of how emotions are created, etcetera. Basically that I am confusing science for mysticism or some religious idealistic nonsense. Of course people are entitled to their opinion, but as no concrete factual evidence has been revealed explaining how human beings can develop this emotion and let it affect them the way it does, I'm sticking to my guns that there is a reason for these emotions more than what the evolutionists will believe.*

 

Society tells three big lies to adolescents about dating:

1. You know what you're looking for when looking for a boyfriend/girlfriend.

     2.  Meaningful and non-sexual relationships aren't cool. You only live once.

 

and 3. If you're single, no one wants you.

 

How is it okay to tell a generation this? Especially of young kids. I didn't even have an inkling of who I was or what I wanted or what I even knew at that age. Even during college I was still discovering what made me....me. And I think every adult can testify that we hit obstacles and walls every single day in some way and feel lost, especially involving relationships. Can that be because we didn't understand the concept from day 1?

How can I possibly know what I'm looking for in a guy/girl if I didn't even know what made me happy?

Why is having a meaningful relationship based off of only friendship and no lust involved uncool?

And why does being single have ANYTHING to do with someone wanting me? Why do I need someone to want me for that matter?

 

These are the questions teens need to be asking themselves. And here are a few answers.

1. You don't know what you're looking for, simply because you shouldn't even be looking. I know that this sounds like something strict parents tell their kids, but it's the truth. Each year will bring new adventures, new likes and dislikes, and new people into your life. You'll grow, make mistakes, discover, and do a complete 180 from what you were the day before. Adulthood is a lot like a rollercoaster or an epiphany....something will shift within you. When you rush into a relationship, oftentimes you'll find yourself with someone that isn't right for you.
2. Meaningful relationships that don't have sex or physical intimacy in it is NOT a bad thing at all. Don't feel peer pressured by your friends to have to do this. Now while peer pressure is a natural part of being involved with kids your age, try something like changing the topic very subtly. It's none of their business what's going on in your relationship if you decide to be in one. Having intimacy is a very big deal, despite how nonchalant society attempts to treat that subject. It takes a piece of you each time you give some of yourself away to another person. That's how you become distrusting and angry towards the opposite sex after being hurt so many times. So it's okay to be a virgin. Don't let anyone tell you different.
3. This is the big one, because it deals with self-esteem. Problems with self- esteem most often leads to the decisions that alter our heart. You being single has nothing to do with your desirability. If you feel like it does and that matters to you, then this is where the title becomes involved. You have to love yourself before you can ever bring someone else into your life to love. It seems so unoriginal, but when you evaluate the truth of it then you can see how it makes sense. Find the things that make you happy. Dress the way you want, listen to the music you want, go on the travels you want....and one day you'll find someone falling in sync with the movements you make. And they'll never want to leave.

Now these statements are definitely geared towards teenagers, but adults too can find something within it as well because it's difficult to remember to follow along the same lines when we have the freedom to make our own choices without certain parameters. However, because many of the people my age still dealt with the same issues above, we can still learn from it. It's even harder for us because we think now we know what we want or how to go about things, but we may not. Sometimes it's even worse for us adults because the older we get, the more our biological clock starts ticking in our ears and we want a family. We feel like we must fulfill this need or we're inadequate to our peers. I read a beautiful article by a woman (can't remember the title or her name at the moment), but it told of how she got married in her 30's to a man that she wouldn't have found to be her "type" when she was in her 20s. How she had to overcome her self-doubt and her idea of what type of man she wanted in order to finally find the one man who would stand by her side forever. And that's the truth of it. We can't put a time, or a type, or a name to who our match will be....all we can do is make sure that we are as good of a person as possible for them when they do show up.

 

*Note: I'm going to be making a more in-depth EP mini- series about this topic specifically for teenagers. I'll reveal the release date later.