Learning to have a healthy relationship with yourself can be a very difficult and long journey, but it is also an extremely important one. Learning to love, take care of, respect and being confident with yourself and who you are will ONLY benefit you in life. In many situations you may find yourself accepting poor treatment or disrespect from others. This may even come from the people closest to you such as your best friends, significant others and even family members.

 There are many different reasons as to why people treat you poorly and sometimes it’s just a forgive and forget situation. However when people, no matter your relation with them, continue to treat you poorly over and over again, that’s where the self love and respect come in. In order to walk away from these people and situations, you need to have that self-respect to understand that the way you’re getting treated is not okay. Sometimes though, if you’re like me, you wait until it’s too late. You wait until the point where this person has broken you and taken your confidence and self-love away. It’s hard to walk away from people even when they treat you horribly, but when you get to the point where you are finally ready to let them go, that is where the journey could begin or maybe even restart. 

The reason it’s called self love, self respect, self care, etc. is because it comes from you. You can never find these things within others, no matter how hard you try. These things build you up, help you grow and make you the best version of yourself. When you are able to find these things within yourself, you won’t find yourself constantly depending on others for happiness. Your mood won’t depend on whether they text you back that day or not. If you show no respect towards yourself, other people will notice this and think it’s okay to treat you the same way. If you continue to let someone in over and over again after they’ve hurt you, manipulated you or broken you, they will think it’s okay to treat you that way because you keep allowing them to. You will only be treated as greatly as you treat yourself. Mr. Anderson, a character from the movie The Perks of Being a Wallflower, once said “we accept the love we think we deserve”, and since then I haven’t forgotten that line. 

No one ever said it was easy, but everyone starts somewhere. In the end, you will find that it is all worth it. You will be able to look back and laugh at some of the stupid things you settled for. Start by finding at least one good thing every day. Know you’re enough and worthy of love and respect. The moment you start living life for yourself and not for others is the moment you will realize that life is an amazing thing. Yes, there will be bad days here and there, but at the end of each day, you should be able to look at the sunset or look at the stars and know that everything will be okay, because it will.