The Importance of Self Love (pg.35)

Happy Valentine's Day :)

For those couples on this day and from this day forth, may you continually give each other the best gift of all, your true presence. If you are not truly there, then how can you truly love? As you continue on your journeys never forget the importance of self love. The amount of love you can give and receive is limited to the amount of love you have for yourself.

Plato's The Symposium, is the quintessential classic that inspired the original notion that to be complete one must find their other half. That is where the idiom "my other half" came from. So we spend our lives, and sometimes even longer searching for that other half to make us whole. To love and to be in love with someone is a beautiful thing. However, if you are not whole without someone, you can never be whole even with someone.

No matter how much love someone may have for you, it will never be enough to fill the deepest spaces of your heart that only you can. With self love.

Once Upon a Time a Long Time Ago, in a Land that Time Forgot. 

There was a woman by the name of Aphrodite. Aphrodite was unique in that she was not any regular woman, for she was a goddess. The goddess of love, lust, and beauty. Men pursuing these three things chased her day and night with their prayers and wishes of desperation. For eons she was content with her melancholy position in the cosmos. 

Until one day, she realized that she had grown tired of her daily routine. She noticed a feeling in her chest. Upon closer examination she discovered that a hole had formed in her heart. Unknowing to her just how lonely and empty she had really become over time. Weary of the countless men fueled to madness with their selfish love, insatiable lust, and desire for physical beauty. While all the while she was longing for true love, free of infatuation and superficial obsessions.

She set out on her journey to find that which her heart desired most. She searched the highest mountains, the deepest oceans, the hottest deserts, and the coldest tundras. To her dismay she could not find love. She tried to make sense of it all, she tried to understand. Yet she could not. For she did not yet even accept let alone understand herself. She was subject to the same patterns for millions of years.

One day as she was journeying through a valley that was littered with boulders both big and small. She stumbled upon a message that was etched in one of the many boulders. The message that was written was:

"You desire so much to move on, yet you choose not to. Clinging desperately to the familiarity of the sorrow of your past. Will you listen for a moment with a big heart, and an open mind? To these words that you yourself originally created, so long ago? When is the last time you let your heart bleed? So that you can feel the extent of your sorrow, and the depth of your joy? When is the last time you chose to ignore practicality? And instead, let yourself feel the way your heart felt, rather than think what your brain thought?

Perhaps then and only then you can understand that emotions are two ended. One cannot feel joy without the same capacity to feel sorrow. One cannot feel love without the same capacity to feel hate. Should your pain be any less wondrous as your pleasure? With two hands you try desperately to build your dream in a desert made from your hope.

If you would see past your wall of grief. You would be in awe at the boundless beauty of the world of which you walk upon. The breathless sweetness of the life that you live. A Queen you are. Though you do not yet know it. Because you view the world through eyes blurry with tears of pain and misery.

What lovely colors you paint the world. As you moisten dry deserts with your soothing ocean, and cause flowers to bloom in winter with your fingers of gentle warmth. Whenever you are sad. Even the massive clouds cry for you. Whenever you are happy. Even the sun smiles with its ancient grin."

Inspired after reading this, she eagerly continued on her journey and shortly found a small village. In which she met a god by the name of Hephaestus who was the god of blacksmiths, artisans, and sculptors. Sensing that Hephaestus was different from the other men who have pursued her before, she along with Hephaestus fell madly in love with one another. For a million years this lasted. Until one day she realized that she still felt lonely and sad. When she looked down at her heart she saw that the hole she thought was covered up was still there.

So she left Hephaestus and found a god by the name of Ares whom she was attracted to due to his violent and untamed nature. Much like herself, she found a lot in common with Ares. With him she too spent a million years in love, yet the hole was still there. Between the kind nature of Hephaestus and the rough nature of Ares she wondered why she still felt lonely and sad. She decided that she would spend time finding herself trying to figure out why no matter who her partner was, she was still empty inside.

Until one day when she realized that the reason why she could not receive love from others, was because of the very hole she tried to fix with it. For what love was given to her would simply leak out. Seeing how her previous attempts have failed, she spent the next million years trying to find the solution. Then she realized that nothing outside of her could fix the hole. She contemplated that if the love outside of her could not seal it, perhaps the solution was somewhere within. Then it dawned on her that to be loved, she first had to love herself. For whatever love was given to her didn't matter since it was ever changing and could be taken away. The only love that could fill the deepest parts of ones heart is the love that comes from deep within.

By loving oneself how could a hole and emptiness remain?

The End

The Beginning*