Do I love myself…..

One of the strangest questions I have had someone ask me. Do I love myself? One of my journal prompts for today asked me that question. I knew that I wanted to blog about this. In recovery, everyone is always reminding us to love ourselves. As I have gone through my NA journey and my trauma recovery it's something I hear from everyone. I have to love myself, I have to believe in myself. I have to know that I deserve better. I have even caught myself several times saying it to other people. Why is it assumed that we / I don't love myself? Why, is it assumed that I don't? I love myself very much, and my actions have shown that. Why else did I fight so hard during my abuse? Why did I walk into a meeting that first day? I do love myself! Sometimes, I need help seeing that I am worthy of the love that I know I deserve. Is that wrong? Am I wrong for being weak? To answer the first part of the prompt, I do love myself! Why would anyone assume I don't? The second part of the prompt is where I caught my breath. What can I do to love myself more? I held my pen for several minutes. The word that immediately flashed into my head was "forgiveness". I needed to forgive myself for everything that had gone on over the last years. Then I started to think about it. How can I love myself more there are no limits on my love for myself. I love myself unconditionally. Then like a little person was sitting on my shoulder the questions began to roll. Oh, yeah then why can't you forgive yourself? Why did I allow.....? Why didn't I.....? What do you.....? For several minutes the questions and statements just kept coming. As I sat there and found every reason under the sun why I wasn't worthy of forgiving myself? I began to write each of the statements down. When I was finished, I went back to the first one. Only instead of answering it, knowing that I would find some reason why I wasn't worthy. I stopped and said to myself how would I answer this if it was someone else saying it to me. Would I allow a friend, family member, or loved one to get away with such self-sabotage? Absolutely not! So then why was I allowing myself? So to answer the second part of my journal prompt for today. What can I do to love myself more? Give me a break! Understand that I make mistakes! Learn from those mistakes! Allow me the room to learn and grow! Finally, take my own advice and find 1 thing I enjoy doing for just me and do it. So, I ask all of you? Not if you love yourself, because I know you do. What are some things you can do to love yourself more?