Hi! I hope everyone’s Christmas was full of light and joy! This time of year is difficult for some people, so spread a little extra love whenever you can. Today’s letter is about the top 5 things I learned throughout this year. Now, this is a little bit out of my comfort zone because I will be extremely open in this letter. As a Lovely, you already know I do my best to include a personal experience in whatever topic I discuss, but this will be different. My goal with The Self-Love Blog is to always be genuine and transparent. So, fasten your seat belts Lovelies.
These lessons are in no particular order, but they are, in my opinion, extremely important to the self-love journey. Okay Lovelies, a HUGE lesson I learned this year was the concept, “Something happened to me, but I am not WHAT happened to me.” I often wish so badly that I couldn’t relate to this, but unfortunately, life happens and has happened to me, a lot. I carried a lot of the trauma that I’ve been through directly on my sleeve, but no one knew anything about it. This happened for a lot of reasons. One being that instead of dealing with the trauma, I suppressed it because I honestly believed what happened to me was so bad that it was all I’d ever be. For example, something happened to me when I was younger, and I carried that trauma around until probably a few months ago. Not realizing that I am more than something that happened to me. A lot of times, we’re experiencing things that we can’t even identify. We have to start being honest with ourselves. We often rob ourselves of so much happiness by suppressing our emotions. Emotions are literally there to be felt. Being honest in our emotions allows us to be free within ourselves. Why suppress your feelings so much to the point where you’re being driven insane over every little thing? That’s no way to live. You have to let it out and let it go to be happy again. Now, y’all know I am a huge advocate for therapy. Seriously, EVERYONE needs some form of healthy therapy. Therapy has helped me discover so much about myself in such a short time, and it’s provided me with so many skills to help me through so much. Those skills will be beneficial for.ever. Coming to the realization that I am more than the trauma, more than the brokenness, and more than the damage, was mind-blowing. Harboring emotions and trauma for any amount of time is detrimental, but for roughly 15 years? It’ll drive a person to do a lot of negative things. I was that unhealthy person. I know so many unhealthy people that have not learned this very important lesson. So Lovelies, please read me loudly and clearly, as a matter of fact, say this out loud so you can hear YOURSELF loudly and clearly:
SOMETHING HAPPENED TO ME, BUT I AM NOT WHAT HAPPENED TO ME. I AM MORE THAN WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.
I cannot stress this enough. You do not have to carry your trauma on your sleeves. You do not have to suppress your emotions in order to live. Stop faking being okay. It is okay to not be okay. There comes a point in time where you have to choose your path. Are you going to live freely and happily? Or are you going to continue surviving miserably? It is a choice.
Which leads me to my next lesson; I choose my own happiness. Honestly, after learning this, my perspective changed in a lot of ways. So, let’s break this down. Ultimately, life is full of choices. Everything we do boils down to a choice. From the time we wake up in the morning, to the time we go back to sleep, every move we make comes from a choice. So, if you look at this in terms of emotions, relationships, careers, and everyday life, what are you choosing? With your emotions, are you choosing happiness or are you choosing to dwell on the sadness you’re feeling, or the anger you’re experiencing? With relationships, are you settling for any kind of love you can get or are you loving yourself until the right love comes? Everything is truly a choice, so why aren’t you choosing happiness? Now, I realize that not EVERYTHING can be a choice. Fortunately, we don’t have the power to control every little thing in our lives. But quite honestly, that really doesn’t even matter. Self-reflecting will definitely help this make more sense. Learning you, what you want out of life, and what your purpose is will make the vision so much clearer. Being on this earth each day is truly a blessing. So the little things life may throw at you are minor compared to the alternative. Even if you’re fighting and striving to get to happiness, being blessed with another day gives you one more chance to get closer to your goal.
So remember how I said the first lesson was a huge lesson? Well this third one here is, also. Self-love is the best love. Let me say this again. SELF-LOVE IS THE BEST LOVE! And I said what I said. Because it’s true. Self-love is so amazing, y’all I could shout it from the mountaintops.
Disclaimer:
Self-love is not pretty. It is not just candles and bubble baths or treating yourself. Self-love is accountability. Self-love is learning you, the good, bad, and ugly parts of you. Self-love is getting down to the nitty-gritty parts of yourself that you absolutely despise, and positively changing them. Self-love is dealing with your trauma, and healing, and transparency. Self-love is taking your own trash out. Self-love can be lonely. Self-love can hurt. Self-love can be tears for a month straight. Self-love can be regressing before progressing. Self-love can be isolating. Self-love can be confusing. Self-love can be full of anxiety and depression. But self-love is so necessary. Self-love is worth it. Self-love is selfish. Self-love is beneficial. Self-love is the hideously beautiful creation of a masterpiece.
Choosing happiness looks like choosing self-love. Choosing you will always benefit you. Sometimes we need to be a little more selfish with ourselves, and stop letting society tell us that self-love is selfish. It is selfish. That’s the point. If you choosing yourself produces a negative reaction from someone around you, that’s their problem. Straight like that. That has nothing to do with you and their reaction should never persuade you to NOT choose you. Choose you. Always choose you. That’s one of the best choices we can make besides choosing God. Now I’m not saying that choosing happiness will always be easy either. Because it’s not. As you Lovelies know, I’ve battled with depression a good while, and depression doesn’t make anything easy. But through my depression, I know that the goal is still happiness. Learning to understand your emotions and control your emotions is apart of choosing happiness, also. Listen, just because you’re feeling your feelings in order to let them go, that does not mean you have to DWELL in your feelings. Feeling and dwelling are two different things that you must learn quickly. Grabbing ahold of your emotions is so important because emotions are extremely strong to the point that they can overtake us. Also, understanding that there is no time frame on “feeling your feelings” is important. Take your time with yourself. You are fragile even when you’re being strong, remember that.
The fourth lesson learned during this great year of lessons was a simple fact really. A two-for if you will. I have complete and total control over who does and who does not have access to me. This year, I have become the new number queen. On purpose. Not everyone should have direct access to you. This lesson is tied to every single lesson that is previously stated. For years, I was such a people pleaser, constantly putting everyone else’s needs before my own, priding myself on being selfless and constantly being there for people no matter the history, etc. That has stopped for a number of reasons. Not everyone needs access to you. Period. Honestly, giving your energy out to everyone will leave you drained. Constantly saying yes to everyone no matter what they’re asking will leave you with nothing. Overextending yourself is never worth it, and you are worth more than being drained and sucked dry everyday. The beginning stage of my self-love journey was so needed for me because it truly showed me exactly what I want out of life, people, and myself. Because of childhood issues, I constantly wanted love from everyone, no matter what kind of love I was getting. I needed so badly to prove to myself and others that I was lovable. Instead of loving myself, I sought out love from any and everyone else. Though I’ve come to this realization about myself and quickly changed my behavior, I still struggle with love in general. But my self-love journey has revealed to me that not everyone can have access to me. I honestly say this in the most humble way; I am too special for everyone to have access to me. Seriously. I offer too much, my heart is too big, and quite frankly, a lot of people just can’t handle me. That’s just facts. For so long, I struggled with that because I thought that giving myself to everyone would grant me some grand prize or something. No sis. There are people out there that just cannot appreciate a person like me. It’s just that simple. No one who can get me out of character has access to me. No one who doesn’t know how to treat me has access to me. Why? Because they don’t deserve to. I deserve complete peace, and allowing negativity into my life will never give me any. I choose me. I choose happiness, and for me, that looks like choosing who I allow close to me, who I allow in my space, and who I allow to know me. Period. Sis, everybody can’t know you! Everybody shouldn’t know you! I’m a rare gem, and everybody can’t touch me. I honestly don’t want everybody to. Once you see people for just who they are and see yourself for exactly who you are, you’ll understand that everybody is not built like you. Everyone is not on the same level as you, and everyone is not as great as you. Seriously. Sometimes you have to just get in your confidence bag and truly realize how amazing you are. Because I know that I’m not for everybody, and I know what I want, require, and deserve.
The final lesson is hereee! I deserve good love, good things, and good people. I am worthy of all things good. In last week’s letter, I discussed settling and striving for good love. For a long time, as previously stated, I settled for bad love because I never thought I was worthy of good love. I believed because I had been through so much, that I was tainted and damaged goods, so I could never have good love. Not realizing that these experiences shaped me for good love. These experiences allowed me to know what I deserve and know without a doubt what good love isn’t. My self-love journey has shown me so many different things. Especially the fact that because I’ve been through so much, I definitely deserve good things, but more importantly, I deserve to give myself all different kinds of good things. That includes love and people. I deserve to show myself all the good love and tenderness and care that I never showed myself before. I deserve all the good things a lot of people didn’t give to me. I deserve so much good because I’m a child of God and He said so. Despite anything that anyone’s done to me or anything I’ve gone through, that doesn’t negate any of the promises that God has given to me. I am worthy and deserving of good. Period. That’s the lesson. That’s all. The end.
Kidding. But in all seriousness, this was a mouthful. But if you’ve gotten to this part, I appreciate you. Take some time during these last few days of the decade to reflect on the lessons that God and life have shown you throughout this year. We should not only be reflecting during this time, but we should be grateful, and we should be applying these lessons to the future. Learning a lesson doesn’t mean ignoring the lesson because you’ll continue being tested in the same area over and over until you ace the test. Don’t keep going in circles; break the cycle, and apply the lessons to your future. Continue choosing you. Continue with your self-love journey. The beginning has been beautiful, so I can’t wait to see where the future takes us. Thank you so much for sticking this out with me Lovelies. 2020 is coming. Are you ready?
W. Love,
Noelle
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