Hundreds of articles, videos, and books will tell you to love yourself enough to leave people who don’t make you happy.
But self-love isn’t just about toughening up and walking away from things.
Often, it’s about holding your own hand when you’re struggling to let go of what you think you should be letting go of. It’s showing up with grace and kindness even when you know you’re making a mistake.
Self-love doesn’t mean putting yourself down for dating the bad guy.
Self-love involves taking the time to understand why you feel the urge to go back to the toxic situation. It involves reading, learning, and cultivating awareness to understand what’s holding you back.
But even after you understand what is and isn’t good for you, self-love doesn’t mean magically taking all the right decisions.
Self-love involves holding yourself together and calmly observing what’s happening when you feel compelled to make the apparently poor choice. It means being patient with yourself because not everyone can just wake up one morning and cut off the toxic ties.
It’s a process. You know you need to leave, but sometimes you just can’t. That’s how unhealthy attachments are, they’re addictive.
You can’t use self-love as a ramming tank to barge through that pain.
Self-love is tender. It sees the pain, it asks you what you need to deal with it, and most importantly, self-love gives. It gives you the permission to make mistakes so you can learn. It gives you the opportunity to let things play out so you’re not stuck in what-ifs. It holds you safely until you figure out how to untangle yourself from all that’s pulling you down.
Self-love won’t tell you to toughen up and stop caring about people.
Self-love will ask you how you want to care for yourself. It will teach you how to make space for yourself when other people’s lives start taking over yours. It will create capacity for tremendous love while assuring you that it will be here when you get hurt.
Because you will get hurt.
Self-love will not lie to you about always being happy.
Self-love will prepare you to experience the painful feelings and have the hard conversations.
And yes, sometimes, self-love will ask you to leave.
But even on the days you can’t, self-love will love you just as ferociously.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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 The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer |
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Photo credit: Giulia Bertelli on Unsplash
