On Loving Yourself

Learning to love yourself, such a tremendous feat and with it such sweet relief and freedom.

The realization that you were enough all along.

And that you are beautiful and worthy by the fact that you exist.

No matter where you are on your journey, no matter how far you feel you may have lost your way, there is always the potential for change.

For becoming.

For realizing your strength and your power.

You are not alone and there is so much more that this life has to offer.

When we only just realize the power and beauty that comes with loving ourselves.

“Love After Love”

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread.

Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.”

―Derek Walcott