Love yourself to find love

The topic this month really has me racking my brain. It keeps sounding like a contradiction to me. Surely as a human being we all have the right to be loved? So why does one need to love yourself to find love?

For me, it feels better and sits better if we rather say – Love yourself to find the love you deserve. See, anybody can love you. However, if you do not love yourself, you would gladly accept mediocre love. Poisonous love. Toxic love. You don’t see yourself worth much more, and its still love, right?

Wrong! Throughout my life I have experienced a lot of toxic love. Thinking it was pure and believing it to be good for me. The people closest to me all told me that I was making a mistake. That this love was not pure, that this love was unhealthy. I did not listen, always preferring to hit my head numerous times before ever learning my lesson. When eventually my blinkers fell away and I saw what I had allowed close to me, I could leave it behind. I could set a new goalpost and move forward.

As I have learned to love myself more and more through my journey, my teachers, my guides, I have got closer and closer to finding the love I deserve with each failed friendship and each failed romance. If I spend the rest of my time searching, and perfecting, that will also be okay. But in the meantime, I am loving myself, and I am finding the love I deserve.

Be kind to yourself

GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY

And another topic that I have had to rack my brains for. I have given back my entire life. To other people. To organisations. To friends. To family. And I find myself in a phase of my life where I no longer want to. Because I feel like at some stage, I have to also be able to receive.

Its not that I am not open to receive. I am. Its not that I detest the idea of giving back. I don’t. I just feel like at some stage my turn needs to come back. There are many people in need. Especially in South Africa. And I am so aware that I have so much more than so many people around me. And as I sit here, on Human Rights Day, I realise just how selfish that seems.

I realise that giving back, helping other people, is what makes Hayley, Hayley. And that I never ever must stop. Yes people take advantage, yes people use you. But then what about those that you are saving? What about those that, without your assistance, would be 5 steps backwards? Without your smiling face, your kind word, your hug, would not have been able to face another day?

So thank you Kim. I will never ever stop giving back. To the community, to the world. I have a place here. And I intend to fill it as brightly as I can with every opportunity I am given.