Song of the Day: Free Spirit by Khalid
Before I begin, these words were meant to find you.
The first time I heard the quote “The love of your life is the love of your life” I immediately thought about romantic relationships and how it’ll be so amazing to finally find your person and live happily ever after. Humans spend their lives looking for that one person and that’s something we are all aware of, whether consciously or unconsciously.
For some reason, it wouldn’t leave me. Then I came across a TikTok video talking about an eerily similar thing, and it hit me. The love of your life is the love you give yourself. This isn’t just about the love you receive from others. It’s how the love you show yourself reflects what you receive from others.
You are the only one who will be with yourself for the rest of your life. You are the only one who can make you happy, fulfilled, and loved. You deserve to make a lifelong commitment to yourself, even if it’s the hardest commitment you’ll ever make. You are the center of your universe and the core of your entire existence.
The Love of Your Life is the Love of Your Life
For a while, I was certain I didn’t know what love was. There is a multimillion-dollar industry focused on the wonders of love and how intense it is. The movies show the heart exploding, and the butterflies that flutter nervously as the protagonists kiss. It has always been portrayed as something so intense and vibrant. But I didn’t feel that. It was often…quiet, so I assumed that wasn’t love.
Every relationship will get boring after some time. After the butterflies and the sparks, you kind of settle into a familiar routine. This is the kind of love that truly matters, and the kind of love you should give to yourself. A love so familiar that you show up for yourself every single day.
To truly love yourself is to hold yourself close through the darkest of times, knowing that you are enough. It is to find comfort in your own company, without the need for external validation. It is to see your solitude as an opportunity to connect with yourself on a deeper level and to emerge from every crisis stronger and more connected than ever before.
One thing I tell myself, whenever I realize that I am getting lost in another person, is that they can only learn to love me through the way I love myself. My sense of self-preservation should be greater than any potential romantic escapade.
It is exciting to fall in love with someone else. However, I often wonder if I put as much effort into making myself feel loved and appreciated as I do into making my partner feel loved and appreciated. If I have so much love to give, the first person I should give it to is myself.
The Love of Your Life is the Love of Your Life
I once struggled (still do) to balance my need for self-love with the needs of others. In my efforts to prioritize myself, I sometimes came across as selfish. I blurted it out to someone and what they told me is something that I will always keep in my subconscious.
Oftentimes, when we are learning to put ourselves first, it’s very normal to move from one extreme end of self-deprivation to self-exaltation. It takes a little bit of learning and unlearning before you finally find a balance that works well for you.
It is your life. It’s your tale you are weaving. After God, you are the author of your story and it is yours to live for you. Whatever you make the center of your world will determine the kind of life you choose to live and the kind of choices you choose to attract.
Learning to say no is something that I had to forcefully learn. Whenever I create boundaries, I spend the first few minutes dealing with gut-wrenching feelings of disappointment before I finally settle on the fact that I made the best decision for myself.
If they can’t respect your decisions, then they don’t deserve to be in your life.
Treating the people who genuinely love you well is an extension of your self-love. It’s like growing a garden and watering all the healthy plants in it. The garden doesn’t just exist in a void, it’s made up of all the plants that grow together.
The Love of Your Life is the Love of Your Life
It’s not enough to think of your love as something you need to earn, it is something you deserve. You are entitled to your love. Your life deserves to experience your soft, most abundant love. You deserve to experience the way your heart breaks when others are hurting, the encouraging words you tell those in doubt, and the caresses you give those in pain.
Even if you haven’t achieved everything you set out to do, and even if the only thing you’ve ever done is make your mother smile on the day you were born, you are worthy of love. Your very existence is a gift to the world, and you deserve to be cherished.
The Love of Your Life is the Love of Your Life
Who you make a priority, is how much love you are willing to give yourself.
I think that loving someone else gets better when they are a living example of the kind of love they want. It makes it all easier. Valentine roses, New Year kisses, giggles in the park, and late-night conversations. You aren’t trying to save each other, you are just trying to love one another. That’s the best way to heal. With love comes healing and acceptance and finally, all that will remain will be scars that don’t hurt anymore.
I am the one (and only person) I feel both uncertain and unwaveringly sure of. I don’t think self-love has a destination where you attain a god level of self-love. I think it’s self-loving; a continuous process of choosing and believing yourself, even when you have no idea why you should.
The love I want to receive is the same I want for myself: where fireworks aren’t exploding and storms aren’t colliding. It’s a soft, quiet love, whispering into my ears and telling my heart to beat slower and surely. It’s not as exciting as what I see on TV or in books, but it is the kind of love I need.
I want to be loved the way the ocean loves the shores, and the way the morning dew rests gently on sunflowers. I want to be adored the way tree branches hover in the sky, protecting the ground from the scorch of the sun. I want to feel safe and secure like when I’m in my mother’s arms and she rocks little me.
I want to give myself these and more, and I think you should too. I wish you the gift of unwavering self-reverence.
