Self Love

For the longest time in my life, I could easily say the words “I hate myself”, without pause.  It’s not that I thought I was a bad person or that I didn’t treat others with kindness.  But I did not know my self worth, within me.  Others cannot and should not define your own self worth.  In order to know what you mean to yourself and the external world, you need to first find this inner importance.  When I was approaching 40, I would always tell others, “I don’t care if don’t make it past 40.”  Looking back at that, I see that was an extraordinary amount of disrespect for myself.  If I truly cared about who I was and what I meant to others, I would never have that mind set.   So, to turn that around and realize within me that I mean something and deserve to give/receive love, I needed to cultivate self love.  Self love is what I believe is the single most vital component in becoming the best version of yourself.  When I was trying get to the best version of me, I called the goal A+ Francis.  And my path to A+Francis started with bringing love within and caring about for the person I am.  External love is a wonderful part of life and it makes life even more rewarding than it would be otherwise.  But external love cannot complete us.  Only the love we have for ourselves can make us whole, which in turn can allow us to give love to the outside world.  I have heard many times, “The greatest relationship you can have, is the relationship with yourself.”.