A Love Letter to Me

It's a rough night.
It's been a rough week.
Month.
Semester.

In an attempt to process some feelings, I started working on a writing assignment given to me by my new therapist.

There are 5 categories. You start by expressing your feelings of:

1. anger and blame
2. hurt and sadness
3. fear, insecurity and loneliness
4. guilt and responsibility
5. love, forgiveness, understanding and desire

If at any point you feel emotions from a previous category, you go back up and let it all out, working down to the bottom.

What was cool is that when I got to that last level, one of the prompts was:

"I love you because..."

And I felt strongly that I needed to direct that part to me.

Jesus taught us to love others as we love ourselves.

But what if we don't love ourselves??

If I spoke to other people the way I speak to myself, I would have no friends, and lots of hurt feelings directed at me.

So why is it okay to treat myself like dirt???

Spoiler Alert: IT'S NOT

I've always endeavored to live by the golden rule, but now it needs flipped.

"Do unto yourself as you would do unto others."

I'm all about love notes for others, so here's one for me.

Dear Natalie,

I love you because you have chosen to be brave and strong. I love you because you're fighting instead of cowering to your inner demons. I love you because you're keeping your promises, even though it's really hard. I love you because you're humble enough to get help, and teachable enough to internalize what you're taught. I love you because when you ache, you accept God's invitations to serve others. I love you because you are a daughter of God who is priceless, worth fighting for, and YES, absolutely deserving of love.

Love,
Natalie