Looking for Truth

stay-close:

“I can’t change where I come from or what I’ve been through, so why should I be ashamed of what makes me, me?”

— Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

I asked myself today, why are you craving the company of another person right now? What is it that they give you that you feel you cannot have when you’re alone?

At first I thought it was fear, that I’m just deeply afraid to sit with my own thoughts and feelings, and don’t get me wrong that’s definitely in there. But then I realized that really it’s the validation, the comfort, the loving tenderness, the prolific and thought provoking conversations, the fun and laughter, the looks of awe and adoration, someone to tell me that I matter and I am beautiful, those are the things I’m craving. Those are the things I am searching for in someone else.

But I realized something else. This whole time I have felt like those experiences were separate from me, external, something I just receive. Truthfully, the dynamic of give and take that we see in relationships is also a dynamic present within ourselves. I can show love to me, from me, in all of the tangible and intangible ways I mentioned before.

Sometimes I stare at myself in the mirror with the awe of a lover. Sometimes I laugh at my own funny thoughts so much that it hurts. Sometimes I write in my journal or have conversations with myself out loud, and they always get me thinking. Sometimes I write myself notes to validate, comfort, or show love and gentleness to myself. Everything I want from someone else, I can and already do give to myself.

So, it’s not that I don’t want someone to share this life and everything it has to offer with. I do. It’s that I’m learning that this whole time, that person is and has always been me.

free-my-mindd:

resqectable:

“Know who you are. Know what you want. Know what you deserve. and don’t settle for less.”

— Tony Gaskins

perfeqt:

“As I look back on my life, I realize that every time I thought I was being rejected from something good, I was actually being re-directed to something better.”

— Steve Maraboli

thoughtkick:

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.”

— Wayne Dyer

perfeqt:

“It’s true that nothing has the potential to hurt so much as loving someone, but nothing heals like it either.”

— Emily Henry, The Love That Split the World

geryone:

ALT

Brute, Emily Skaja

perfectfeelings:

“Free yourself from the illusion of good and bad days. Labeling time makes us nostalgic of the past and demanding of the future. There is only here and now. Let it be.”

— Ram Dass