Love appears in our lives in many different ways. When love is mentioned we all tend to think of romantic love, the dreamy dating type of love. Romantic love often fades when too many expectations are placed on the relationship, or when someone we feel we love develops what we consider to be flaws, they do not respond or behave as we believe they should. We all have flaws, we all have things we do, or say, that irritate our partners, friends, family etc. True love romantic or otherwise is learning to accept that we all do things that irritate and annoy people, love is living with that, not trying to mold the person into someone one you think they should be, this always ends with disaster.
For me one of the most important love is love of self. This can prove to be more difficult. Most of us are not brought up to love ourselves, put ourselves first, it's considered selfish. As I gain wisdom with age I have found that it is essential to love oneself, to take care of your own needs before diving in and helping others. Loving yourself is essential for a balanced, joyful life, if you do not love yourself how could you possibly love someone else.
Loving yourself means accepting that we all have shadow sides, light and dark. Loving yourself means accepting this, looking at the parts of you that you find really annoying and accepting this as part of your whole self.
Loving yourself means loving your body, your vehicles and taking care of it, not selfish, vital for healthy living, taking time to do something that brings you joy no matter how small is loving yourself. Saying no instead of yes when asked to do something, or go somewhere can be difficult at times but it does bring peace rather than spending days or weeks arguing with yourself for saying yes when you actually meant no. If you are anything like me that leads to grumpiness. This is a big one for most people, because we tend to feel guilty for not doing something that someone else would like you to do. Practice saying no to small things to start. Love yourself enough to do what you want. It is okay to love yourself.
