We often tell our loved ones,
we love them.
But how often do we tell ourselves,
we love ourselves?

Is loving ourselves a form of narcissism?
And to be shunned from?
Or are we too busy looking for love from others?
Love to fill the void we feel?
Or are we too afraid to look within ourselves?
Afraid to find what we may not like?

How much we love ourselves,
depends on how worthy we feel of ourselves.
How worthy we feel of ourselves,
depends on our past experiences.
These experiences can leave us hungry for love,
yet not feeling worthy or deserving of it
and incapable of accepting it.

Many of us don't feel good
unless in a relationship,
so that we can say we are loved thus loveable.
But this could mean needing a relationship too much
that we will endure anything
to stay in the relationship.

When we don't love ourselves,
there are other traps in life that we can fall into.
Some of us go for drugs and alcohol.
Some of us go for loose sex.
Some of us go for shopping therapy.
These are temporary external fixes
to an internal problem.
These distract us from facing ourselves
and working on healing past hurts
that contribute to our low self worth.

So why can’t we love ourselves?
To feel loved from within?
To feel good from within?
Is it because we don’t feel worthy?
Why can’t we apply the gifts of love,
that we so often readily extend to others,
to ourselves?
What about acceptance?
What about kindness?
What about respect?
What about patience?
What about recognition?
What about acknowledgement?
Can we love ourselves the way

we want to love others?

KNOW YOUR HEART

We need to love ourselves

Learn to know our heart

To come home to ourselves

When mind and soul

Have been apart

We need to trust ourselves

Learn to accept and forgive

No stranger to our heart

For only then can

We really live!

MERLE HULL

------2002------

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