Fallin'

I think life is a journey of falling in and out of love with yourself and others.

It’s definitely the journey I’ve been on — knowingly — for the past few years.

 

See, I grew up in a family where the words “I love you” were foreign. Something rarely said. Something that didn’t feel real. I knew of love, but it was a stranger to me. Like that one family member who says, “I know you, I used to change your diapers.”

Love has always known me, but I didn’t know it.

When you grow up not really understanding the meaning of:

• Intense feeling of deep affection

• A great pleasure in something

• A complex emotion built on care, connection, and belonging

• Spiritually, the highest vibration — the purest divine energy, the source of everything

 

…you don’t realize how much of your life becomes a search for something that was always yours.

We look for love in everything but ourselves because we forget it’s our birthright.

In the beginning of my journey, I didn’t love myself because I didn’t know myself.

I was the stranger who looked familiar but didn’t feel known.

And when you finally become conscious — when you start seeing the shadows — loving yourself gets even harder.

Seeing all the dirt, all the filth, all the parts I avoided… it was scary.

But it was exactly what I needed.

To see it meant I was finally able to tend to it —

to clean the areas I ignored,

water my soil,

care for it,

connect to it,

love it.

And that’s when I finally saw a sprout.

You have to give love to the dirt for something to grow out of it.

Life has a way of making you see the dirt, taking you through the mud to see if you can love yourself enough to grow some flowers.

And I’d be lying if I said it was easy… I don’t have a green thumb, but I’ve learned it’s all part of the journey of falling out and in of love with yourself.