She was a beautiful person to know, from within as well as her appearance. One of the strongest people I have come across. Having been through a brief but traumatic marriage at a very young age, she emerged from the experience, wiser, wary but undeniably bolder. An excellent student, she went on to move from her native country and set on the journey to another land to make her life – alone.
Her career and job took her to places, meet people and she achieved success. Success that the world could see but not in her heart. She was haunted by her past and was haunted by feeling of worthlessness, inadequacy and lack of self esteem. A process that made her forget who she was and what she has achieved.
Angela’s story is poignant for the fact that here is a lady who has come far, overcome hurdles and challenges life has thrown at her but has been unable to love or accept her worth.
As a French word, “Amour Propre” conveys the beauty of Self worth. It means Self respect or Self esteem.
The core of Angela’s dependency on the world around her and the people, stemmed from her oblivious understanding of the wonderful person that she is. Her loneliness despite friendships and her feeling of inadequacy that evolved from the lack of love for herself.
Our love for ourselves is one that needs to be of complete acceptance and tolerance. Our acceptance of our flaws and conscious efforts to improve would only help us be more more positive and be aware of our uniqueness as a member of society. It is our complete acceptance of ourselves that helps forge positive relationships with others. This healthy and positive regard for ourselves allow us to rise above bias and prejudice, that would otherwise affect our relationships with others. Our acceptance of others individual differences would stem from our refusal to judge them.
Through this tolerance and compassion, our ability to respect our likes just as we respects others wishes emerges, enabling us to be firm with our decisions in a situation.
Loving ourselves is not the same as being vain or being a follower of narcissism. It is merely enabling us to love the person we are so that we are able to love others too without reproach or skepticism. It is a state of mind that helps us lead a happier and fulfilling existence.
Our acceptance and love for ourselves would enable us be happy spending time with ourselves, just as we are happy to be with others. Our sense of peace and harmony would also be seldom rattled by negative responses or behavior from others. The decisions we make in our life will be reflections of wisdom and careful consideration.
Perhaps most importantly, we learn to forgive ourselves for the mistakes we make instead of allowing them to embitter our present and negatively affect the future.
Our courage to learn and go beyond the familiar would automatically increase because of our complete acceptance and responsibility of the consequences of our decision.
In our joyful acceptance of ourself, we celebrate the success of others just as we celebrate ours. Our desire to live in a happier place would be boosted by our complete harmony in ourself.
When you love yourself with compassion and benevolence, the state of happiness you enjoy radiates to those around you. This happiness enable others too to be positive and happier around you.
Angela today, strides forward by reaching out to others through her interest in social work and improving herself through further education.
At peace, she says with a smile,
“I know that I will heal as I help heal others”
