At the time of the year when love is being celebrated, there is a lot of commercialization surrounding what love is or how to show it. However, there is a love that is more important than flowers, chocolates, or anything that is considered romantic. It is your love of yourself. The greatest love you can ever experience in this world is self-love.
Loving yourself is not just looking in the mirror and saying “I love you.” Loving yourself is forgiveness, compassion, and a burning desire to be your best every single day. Loving yourself goes well beyond indulging in something you enjoy or treating yourself well. It is about your commitment to your integrity, your well-being, and your power. Your recovery is how you demonstrate the greatest love.
Forgiveness
Substance use can bring out your worst, expose things that maybe you didn’t even know you were capable of. You do not need to be those things.
On the flip side, the ability to forgive yourself shows a moral character that goes much deeper than your troubles. If you are in emotional pain and you feel low, you can accept yourself for who you are, even at your worst. You can acknowledge both your true self and your behaviors, and you can accept yourself for your flaws and your strengths.
Acceptance leads the way to forgiveness, which is such a powerful and healing experience. When you look in the mirror, you do not have to like what you see at this moment. You do need to believe in qualities that may be masked by what is currently on the surface. Knowing that you can be better, wanting to be better, and being willing to forgive the parts that are not there yet can give you a peace that can be the foundation for the rest of your life.
Compassion
Sometimes compassion is seen as a weakness, but it actually takes great strength to show yourself compassion. Compassion is not justifying your behaviors or hiding what you may have done. Compassion is accepting yourself for who you are, what you have done, and being merciful in your self-judgment.
You can show yourself compassion when, instead of trying to hide your worst parts, you are willing to dig deep and weed out the things you don’t like when you look in the mirror, willing to change. Compassion is showing yourself unconditional love, and having the strength to seek healing to make your weak parts strong. Compassion is loving yourself in spite of yourself.
Integrity
To heal yourself, you will need integrity. It is easy to face ourselves when we have done something well or achieved something amazing. It is much more difficult to face ourselves when we have done something that is embarrassing, harmful, or destructive. Having integrity means that we can own up to everything – good or bad – and be honest with ourselves and others about what we have done. Self-love requires integrity because it is only when we have looked internally and acknowledged all of the parts of ourselves that we can truly say that we love ourselves.
Wellness
Your recovery journey begins now. Once you’ve looked in the mirror and accept who you are and what you’ve done, you are ready to find your own wellness. You have put in the work to change the parts of what you don’t like.
Wellness is loving yourself mind, body, and spirit. It is loving the good parts of who you are, having compassion on yourself when you are not at your best, and wanting change enough to work every single day to improve the parts of you that you don’t like as much.
Wellness is finding the balance between your mind, body, and spirit. It is also finding the balance between your past and your present, and the balance between who you are and who you want to be. We achieve wellness when we start our recovery journey and we have the courage to face each new day with the desire to maintain the balance that we have found.
Power
Self-love is power. The power to see yourself for who you are and the power to change what you don’t like. Acceptance, forgiveness, and compassion give you the power to be free. Free from pain, free from addiction, and free to live your life with integrity. Loving yourself also gives you the power to pick yourself back up if you stumble or fall, the power to run when you didn’t even know you could stand on your own two feet. When you love yourself, you take the control back in your life and give yourself immeasurable power to succeed.
Love is a word that can be used in many ways. While romantic love may be celebrated one day a year, the greatest love can be celebrated every single day. When you are able to forgive yourself, have compassion, show integrity, and do the work to obtain your wellness, you will find a source of endless power. That power is self-love. You are worth it. You deserve it. Start your recovery today and discover the greatest love.
Give yourself the gift of the greatest love. Give yourself the gift of recovery. Call AToN Center at (888) 535-1516 now.
