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We Are Never THE Victim When We Value Ourselves

<Self-Love>

One of the essential foundations of self-love is seeing our own value and respecting ourselves.

“Love yourself” was the advice that my late grandma gave my mother when she left home at age seventeen to journey from her small hometown to the big city for a brighter future. My grandma wasn’t a person who nagged at or fretted about her kids. Instead, she had a way of making them understand the enormity of her message in just a few simple words. So love yourself were two words that stayed with my mom as she grew into adulthood.

When I left home for the first time and went abroad to study at a university, my mom said the same thing to me: “Love yourself.” I remember talking to her about what it meant. The concept of self-love was hard for me to grasp back then, but I could feel the significance of what she was trying to convey.

It wasn’t until I started dating and fell in love that it really hit home how valuable that advice was. It almost sounds too simple—love yourself, but it means so much. Loving yourself means that you never attach your self-worth to whether or not someone loves you.

When my dad told my mom that he was having an affair and wanted to be with someone else, my mom felt a torrent of emotions. But there one was thing she did not feel—she did not feel that my dad had fallen in love with someone else because she wasn’t good enough.

We often wonder: how do you love yourself? We understand the concept of self-love, yet when it comes down to it, what does it really mean?

My mom taught me self-love, and when I watched my mom’s reactions and decisions through her divorce process, I could see what the practice of self-love meant. I could see my mom’s sadness and pain, yet not once did she blame herself or beat herself up wondering if she had been a “good enough wife.” She knew that she had done her best for the relationship as a wife, as a best friend, and as a woman. My mom didn’t blame my dad because she didn’t attach her own value as a person to his decision to leave.

My mom respected herself enough to not see herself as a victim, so she simply wasn’t one. The truth is, people can only victimize us in this way when we give them responsibility for our happiness. It is easy to feel lost when we feel like the people we love don’t value us, but it is so important to know that the value of who we are as people does not diminish based on how other people see us. Don’t let your worthiness be determined by how someone treats you.

When we are in relationships, our happiness is still and will always be our own responsibility. And if your happiness is your own responsibility, then no one can ever make you feel diminished or unworthy. And that is self-love and self-respect.