When I first heard about LOVE MYSELF, I also learned that it supports #ENDViolence campaign, I wondered why. How loving myself can end violence?
I realized it later. After experiencing it from deep inside.
The campaign actually tells about two concepts. First one : "Love yourself". Second one : " Share love".
One is related to another. How?
If you start loving yourself, you will learn to accept your flaws, your mistakes. You will learn to be kind. You will learn to forgive yourself. And when you will practice it everyday, you will be able to accept other's mistakes too. You will be able to be kind towards them. Before hurting others, you will think at least once. You will think, "If someone hurts me like this, how would I feel?" And when you realize that as it will hurt you really bad, it will hurt the same to the one you are hurting. And it will stop you from hurting that individual. It will enable kindness. It will make you more sincere in relationships and it will strengthen the bonds among you. It will stop yourself from breaking someone's heart.
Not only that. Loving yourself helps you to be sincere towards yourself. You will take care of yourself and try to provide yourself what you need. You will know what causes you pain. When that happens, you will try to help them who have the same pain as you. You will reach out your hand towards them and try to lessen their pain. When you will learn to be sincere towards yourself, you will be sincere towards others too.
Loving yourself teaches us that it’s alright to be imperfect. It teaches us to love our imperfections and unique characteristics. It teaches us to find out how precious we are. And as you find the beauty of yourself, you will discover the beauty of others too.
You will discover that even the one you hated has a precious soul inside.
I can give you some examples. As my classmates almost abandoned me (that's what I thought), I wasn’t able to forgive them. I thought about them the same way they thought about me. But thinking about it later, I realized how wrong I was. I am different from them, and our thoughts are not same. That's why I can't share my thoughts with them. It's not my fault. It's not their fault either. I should not hate myself and I should not hate them. They do have their good sides.
My younger sister, who is only nine now, is stepping into puberty and constantly craving for attention, care and time from me. Sometimes she annoys me a lot. But then I think that I also crave for attention and time a lot. So I know how important it is and because of that I try my best to not to hurt her, stand by her and forgive her.
Loving myself encourages me to share my stories with others, and reach out my hands to them who are struggling with problems like me. It encourages me to end the violence towards me and towards them.
Always remember that your small touch of love, care or affection can stop one from taking a dangerous step, such as suicide.
On the other hand, a small action of betrayal or negativity can be a violence. You may not even imagine.
So, let's take a small step of love, care and kindness today.
