When I wanted to write this, I had a lot of thoughts like is it even Valentines Day? What do you even know about self-love? Is this blog for you or for people? Etc.
 Well, the reasons I shouldn’t write this blog post are the same reasons I am writing it. First, It would be such a shame and a great disservice to humanity if the only time we want to talk about love or show love is during valentine’s day. Secondly, self-love is a daily, reaffirming and conscious effort and we have so much trivialized it. Thirdly this blog is our blog and we will learn together.

“Eat as you love yourself. Move as you love yourself. Speak as you love yourself. Act as you love yourself.”  

THE PROBLEM WITH SELF LOVE  

    Often times we seek attention and validation from other people so much that we forget that it is our duty first to validate ourselves before others. I wanted this post to be a love letter to myself, something you can read to yourself too but once I start typing the spirit starts leading and trust me to follow Amen!

 I think the problem we have is that we expect so much love from others when we have not given that measure of love to ourselves. If we are going to be logical about this why should I even love you if you don’t love yourself? If you don’t value yourself what will be my gain if I choose to value you?

“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.” 

IS SELF LOVE EVER ENOUGH?

 Back in secondary school, I wished someone would send me love letters. I had friends who received lots of them and I didn’t know then whether I wanted them because I loved to read or because I felt unloved. PS: I am more likely to read and reply to a text or email than I would receive calls or even call back. I think if you know me well you should know this by now.

 My birthday was the best period for me in secondary because I got a lot of handmade birthday cards and notes. People wrote sweet things about me and I still have most of them.

These cards were almost as sweet if not sweeter than the love letters I read from my classmates/seniors. some of their boyfriends were bad writers and poets but ok ( people of God, I am not being a hater, It’s true) I mean what is the meaning of ‘’the color of your daywear takes my breath away’’  mtcheww uncle go and buy pink oxygen and fix your respiratory problem abeg.

Image by Claudius Hegedus via unsplash

I wanted my own Love letter but now I know better. I was not satisfied with birthday cards I wanted a boy to validate me, to exaggerate my qualities and give me butterflies.

 I didn’t love myself enough to know that I didn’t need a few words from the opposite sex to feel loved and appreciated. This is what we do to ourselves and its bad. When you don’t love yourself enough anybody can give you half baked attention and you will take it like that because you don’t know your worth.

“Loving yourself isn’t vanity. It’s sanity.” – Andre Gide. 

THE BIBLE AND SELF LOVE 

You know in the bible It is written that If you don’t love you don’t know God and If you don’t know God my guess is you will not make heaven, stay with me, now God says love your neighbor as yourself meaning that you are loving this neighbor with the measure of love you have for yourself and if you don’t have it, well you can’t give what you don’t have.  Also even if you manage to love this neighbor and you don’t love yourself you still don’t know God because Love is missing somewhere and you still may not enter the kingdom.  self-love is required for you to enter the kingdom of God. The same goes for forgiveness, forgive yourself for that avoidable mistake or whatever thing you think you did! it goes both ways. 
When it comes to relationship I have a slight problem with this ‘ my other half, my missing rib thing’ because sometimes it is largely misunderstood and it lures some people into thinking that every human being is incomplete and needs another human being somewhere to complete them. Build the love and fulfillment for yourself. You are a complete human being already, you are not half baked or half-formed. God only said it is not good for man to be alone. 
He did not say I have made man Incomplete. you are whole and hopefully, you meet someone who is whole and together you both become wholesome. You don’t even need to start measuring your worth, you were born worthy.

image by Tim mossholder via Unsplash

“A healthy self-love means we have no compulsion to justify to ourselves or others why we take vacations, why we sleep late, why we buy new shoes, why we spoil ourselves from time to time. We feel comfortable doing things that add quality and beauty to life.” – Andrew Matthews 

Image from @contentpixie via Unsplash

HERE IS MY SELF LOVE POEM TO YOU
Dear girl/ boy, man/ woman
I look at you and I see the essence of living, the color of your eyes paint a perfect picture and I don’t know a better view. 
I gaze at the wonder Lines gracing your palms and I wonder what beauty lies in our path as I take your palm in mine.
 I may not know what it means to be perfect but I know you’re the most perfect version of imperfection there is.
 Every arc and curve on your body is an atlas outline of the beauty in your making. I want to ask the creator what Mother nature and Earth did to deserve such a bedazzling creature.
 I feel the texture of your hair, even the baldness of your scalp and all I can say is there is no uneasiness there. It is smooth enough to fit any crown, to lead any troop, to be queen, to be king, to be anything.
 I am in awe of your lips, how your tongue touches your teeth then forms a mini pout before your teeth slightly bit your lower lip into an invitation when you pronounce the word love. I love everything that you are becoming, everything that you are and are not. I accept you. I take you. You are enough.

1john 4:8; Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love

Whole + whole = wholesome

“The fact that someone else loves you doesn’t rescue you from the project of loving yourself.”

So this is a love letter to me and to you. Read it to yourself first before anyone else.



I am out please; it is not time to write my wedding vows. All I am saying is your matter and you matter equally so give yourself love and attention. Eat out by yourself some time, Netflix and chill alone sometimes. Now tell me one thing you love about you whether it is your physical appearance or character traits then write them down.

 I love that I can hype people, I love my Lips when I wear lipsticks or glosses and I love my collar bones even though they are almost nonexistent. Let’s hear yours.

How to heal

 I ask because I have stalled on this subject and I found that it is deeper than cuts, burns, open wounds etc. I am talking about the kind of healing that comes from within, the kind that gives you this freedom and weightlessness that is almost orgasmic, now I don’t mean sexual healing( it is part of it, I am just not the go-to person for that subject) so I am speaking  of spiritual healing, one that comes from the within, from the heart, it’s a mental thing.

It is impossible to talk about this kind of healing without forgiveness, see grudge is like an open wound that exists internally, you continue to bleed inside till your blood becomes stale and your body turns grey maybe not physically but something dies inside of you when you don’t lay aside every weight. I watched a video online and I heard a woman rant about how she had been duped by her husband and how she suffered for years due to the loss, what struck me was her response when she was asked If she had forgiven him, she looked the camera in the eye and she said ‘’I will never forgive him till I die."

I get that it is hard but we have so much normalised resentment to the point that we feel it comes from a place of power but the truth is forgiveness is really an attribute of the strong and there is nothing powerful about holding pain captive. Funny thing is you are the one carrying the burden, for all you know the offender has moved on and you are still here sulking.

What does it mean to heal?

To heal means to become sound and healthy again and it is not even an easy task, everybody has something they need to heal from and sadly it may be little things, your friend spoke to you rudely and forgot to apologise, you feel your parents are not treating you right, you just got out of a bad  relationship etc, truth is some of us are out here yelling I am over it! It’s not that deep! I have moved on! but we both know that’s a lie that studied abroad.

Sometimes we claim to have forgiven yet we secretly nurse the idea for an opportunity to show ourselves. If given a chance we would retaliate as per let me give them a taste of their own medicine. On a lighter note I remember fondly a time when my friend finished a drink we were to meant to share (Capri Sonne(strawberry flavour) to be precise.

I was looking forward to drinking this chilled yumminess because who doesn't like Capri Sonne.

She was sipping this thing with so much energy and I just thought no she can't possibly finish it , she might just be ravenously drinking her share but behold and lo I heard the "krr krr" sound as she squeezed the hell out of this juice. I was really thirsty.
 I remember just feeling ah! my friend, I love you but I must do my own. That scenario may just sound fleeting or trivial and Indeed it was. we genuinely laughed about it but this is how we often react to bigger situations.

we say I forgive you but I pray I get the chance to retaliate so that we can be even but if you get even with everybody you can't beat the odds. It is just vain and self deceitful to hold back while claiming to have let go. People will intentionally hurt you and you must let go because hurt people hurt other people and it raises a generation of broken people.

 So dear Capri Sonne snatching friend if I ever finish a drink meant for both of us do know that it will not be intentional and l am not retaliating or hurting, it will truly be a friendly gesture with a sprinkle of tough love Haq Haq Haq.

Healing does not mean a return to the original state, it is simply accepting to move on despite the limitation. There are physically challenged people who have become great today but they are still physically challenged then there are physically challenged people who continue complaining and falling in and out of depression-like it is some treasure hunt, yes people are different but sometimes it is the choice that makes the difference.

 Where does healing start 

 Healing starts from the mind and if you can’t close that portal of anger or revenge in your mind there will be no open doors for you in reality. Healing is different from curing, you can cure without healing but you cannot heal without curing. Curing is removing evidence of the disease, the hurt, pain, etc but healing is to be made whole. Biblical example; when Jesus took leprosy from the 10 lepers, they left and only one came back to give thanks and Jesus said ‘’ Rise and go thy faith has made thee whole” why did he say that if healing and curing were the same things? Basically, 9 were cured and only one was healed. When you are healed everything about you is intact, preserved and prosperous. This is not a sermon so  go read Luke chapter 17:11-19

Jesus asked, “Weren’t all ten healed? Where are the other nine? Didn’t anyone else return and give praise to God except this outsider?”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go. Your faith has healed you.”

 Healing is deeper and must always come from within. So forgive yourself, heal! yes you are getting old and you want to be young and getting it, yes you may not be doing well in school, yes you don’t have money, life will always happen but heal so that you can move on. What we do most times is temporary we just cure the situation and it only lasts a while that’s why people keep getting sad and depressed over one particular issue.

I don’t know if I was coherent enough but learn now that nobody owns your happiness, learn to be thankful and forgive and forget, yes you can forget! Forgetting doesn’t mean your brain will go blank it just means you are mature enough to open up a new chapter without flipping through the previous one. Give that person another chance in your heart.

Give yourself another chance and if you fail today, heal and start again, now take two minutes to think of that friend or family member or anybody you vowed not to forgive or you partly forgave, you may not call them or anything just take a deep breath and say ‘’I let go’’ free them and free yourself! Take back your peace of mind.

Read Titilope Sonuga's How to heal a wound I think it's amazing