Thank God I love myself very much and I am really proud of it.
It has taken me many years to achieve this love and it has not always been easy. I have learnt firstly to understand myself, and secondly, not to judge myself and never to simply settle for who I am today, always trying to be better tomorrow. Thanks to this I am able to extend this love to my wife without any limitations, as well as my children.
I have learnt not to judge anyone else and instead to try to understand them. No one is perfect and we have to accept people for who they are. We always have to do our utmost to try and understand the people around us. Has it always been easy? No! Most of us have preconceptions, but we have to do our best not to let them be in charge of how we see other people. Before you judge others, you have to examine yourself. Usually, the flaw you see in others is a reflection of yourself. I know how it feels to be judged by others and that’s why I never judge anyone. Thank God between me and my wife there has never been any judgement. When we started dating we were very open with each other and never hid anything about our backgrounds. This contributed towards gaining mutual respect. Of course we had differences between us, but since the respect was so great already from the beginning, we were able to work things out together. There were a few things that bothered her a little bit about me, for example that I was not always very sociable, but since I knew how important this was to her, I did my best to be more sociable and socialize with other people, and my willingness to try, for her sake, because I knew how important it was for her, gained me respect in her eyes.
The understanding I have for myself has helped me in my relationship. Since I understand myself very well it is easy for me to explain myself, my needs, my likes and dislikes, and my quirks. Since I am able to explain myself so well to my wife, she understands me better. Because I am in tune with myself, I can also better understand other people, in particular my wife. If I don’t understand her, I am always strong enough to ask her to clarify herself until everything is crystal clear. Misunderstandings can cause harm and that is something that I really dislike. I am not perfect so it has happened that we have had a few misunderstandings but thanks to all the love and respect we have for each other, we have always been able to clarify everything in a calm way. We know how to speak to each other always in a loving and respectful way. We are also always very strict to make a point of saying thank you to each other, to appreciate what we are doing for each other. Even small things like doing the dishes or emptying the dishwasher comes with a thank you, even if it seems it is not such a big deal, and especially the big things like becoming more sociable!
When you love yourself deeply you are available to love others. Many people need help to reach the point where love of oneself is possible. It is not wrong or embarrassing to get this help. I believe that most of us need a push in the right direction to be complete with who we are. It is not easy, but to live with negative thoughts creates a negative spiral about yourself, and this is very unhealthy, and the possibility of loving someone else in a healthy way is very slim.
I hope that more people will learn to love themselves the way I have learnt to love myself, and in that way, always be able to both love and respect the people around them, and try never to judge someone and always to try to find the good in every person.