By McKenna Leavens
I am not the same person I was a year ago, and honestly thank god for that. The difference between her and who I am now is I found out what self-love meant, and applied it to my everyday routine.
I always turned to validation in others instead of just turning to myself. I won’t lie, I still struggle with this and when people don’t approve of me I tear myself apart. This issue manifests within my trauma and it is something I have to consciously work on every day.

We have to sit in our triggers.
What I mean by that is when something or someone triggers us and provokes a reaction we don’t react. We sit in that trigger and take it in, we let ourselves feel uncomfortable and we let ourselves feel that pain.
That is what self-love, to me, is. Choosing when it is worth reacting to and when you should walk away.
You do not owe anyone anything in this world, you just owe yourself the love and care that YOU deserve.

People will continue to try and tear you down or belittle you, do NOT let those people win.
I’ll be honest with you, I’ve let those people win more times than not. I let people in my life whose love was always conditional.
They were always so quick to write me off and for so long I took this personal. I would blame myself and I truly believed I was hard to love, and not worth fighting for.
The love I found for myself made me realize that I should never apologize for who I am and where I am going in life.
We change with the experiences we go through, we grow through tragedy and setbacks. Number one rule- don’t ever let someone make you feel bad for changing.

We have to change and adapt in life, imagine if we stayed the same forever- that would be boring as hell.
A breakup can change you, a death, a lost friendship or even something as simple as someone trying to take away your worth.
It all goes back to holding on to that self-love. No one can tear you down if you’re secure with who you are. You know your TRUTH. I am not perfect by any means, I still struggle with self-love on a day to day basis.
Some things that I do to make my life have a better flow are

Mediate 10 minutes every day
Journal about anything and everything
Compliment a stranger
Smile at someone on the street
Sing really loud in your car
Eat a healthy meal
Go on a run/ to the gym
Turn your brain off and read a book
Take 5 deep breaths
Forgive yourself for all of your mistakes
Make goals for the next day
I hope these things can help, I am sending lots of love and good vibes everyone’s way.
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