I recently had a conversation that got me thinking.

When I was in my twenties, I thought that I was ready to fall in love and be in a relationship.  Looking back, I wasn’t ready.

How could I ask someone else to love me, when I didn’t love myself?

I didn’t know myself.  I was trying to find out who I was.  I was scared to know myself.  What if I didn’t like what I found?

I used to hate when other people would point out my flaws.  I remember when my best friends used to point them out, I would just leave and go home.  I didn’t know how to handle what they were telling me.

The truth is that everybody has flaws.

The first step that I took to get to love and know myself, was to get help.  In my opinion, most people could benefit from having a life coach at some point in their lives.  The second step was to eat healthy because that would affect my mood.  The third step was to change the way I talked to myself.  I had to let go of all the negative talking that I would do to myself.  Like my life coach asked me, “If I wouldn’t say those things to my patients, then why would I say it to myself?”  In the past, I remixed the song, “I’m beautiful”, to I’m ugly.  I would sing that to myself in my head.  I stopped doing that to myself.  I’m a beautiful person, inside and out.

When I started to fall in love with myself then I accepted myself, flaws and all.  I may not be the prettiest, smartest, fastest, or richest, but I can be Shavawn like no one else can be.  I jokingly call myself the Queen of the World with a co-worker.  In reality, I am the Queen of my world.  I can’t let other peoples opinion of me effect me.  To some of my patients, I’m a good nurse.  To other patients, I’m a bad nurse.  I know that I did the best that I could do.

Now that I’m in my thirties, I’ve fallen in love with myself.  I’m a work in progress and I love the life that I’m cultivating.  I’m noticing that people want to be around me more.  I can tell that my energy is different.

Now I feel like I am ready for love.  Not just romantic love, but family love, friendship love, and most importantly loving myself.  Not loving myself, affected every relationship that I had.  I didn’t know how to love other people because I wasn’t loving myself.  I felt like I wasn’t worthy of receiving love.  It was easy for me to give love to other people and take care of other people.

Now that I love myself, I let what other people say about me, roll off my back.  Recently I had a patient tell me her opinion of me.  It wasn’t good but I don’t even remember what she said.  I do remember telling her that she had the right to think that about me but her opinion of me wasn’t going to change the way I thought of myself.  The next day I had that same patient again and she apologized to me.  I accepted her apology and moved on.  In the old days, I would have been devastated and tried to prove to her that that opinion was unjustified.

I love myself, flaws and all.

I’m letting God know that I’m ready.

 

I looked up the meaning of courage.

It states, “the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear, bravery.”- courage. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved May 18, 2017 from Dictionary.com website http://www.dictionary.com/browse/courage.

I have to disagree with this.

Courage is facing difficulty and having fear but doing it anyway.

Some of the things that I have done, I was still scared when I did them.  For example, when I moved to Hawaii for work, I still didn’t have a place to stay.  I wanted to see the apartment first before I signed the lease.  I didn’t like the apartment and so I had to stay in the hotel until I got another apartment.  I ended up staying in the hotel for a month.  I was nervous staying at the hotel because it was so expensive and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay there for 6 months.  I found an apartment eventually.

When I went para-sailing for the first time, I was nervous and excited.

I was scared to become a travel nurse, but I did it anyway.  I wanted to be a travel nurse.

I was scared to do my first poetry reading, but I did it anyway.

I was scared to do things by myself.  That led me to not going on vacation for 9 years.  I went zip-lining, whale watching, horse back riding, and traveling by myself.

The key to having courage is to freak out and do it anyway or being scared and doing it anyway.

I don’t regret any of the things that I have done that I was scared to do at first.

I was scared to take the steps to make myself a better version of myself.  I was nervous and scared to try new foods.  I’m still scared to try bell peppers.  There are still some sitting in my refrigerator.

I’m still scared to learn how to swim.  I paid for swimming lessons in Hawaii and only went to one lesson.  I know the reason that I’m scared but I’m still having problems getting over it.

Some people have called me courageous.  I do know that I am but if they could hear the conversations that I have with my life coach, then they would know that I still get scared to do things.  Almost every body has something that they fear.

What would happen if you did something that you wanted to do but were always scared to do?  Think of how you would feel when you finally did that thing.  I bet that you would feel proud of yourself, just like I did.

Now I know that when something scares me, I need to do it anyway.

I’ve never looked up to a celebrity as my role model.

I couldn’t ask for a better role model.  My role model is strong, loving, caring, and an awesome person.  My role model instilled good values in me.  My role model leads by example.  My role model is a beautiful person, inside and out.

I strive to be like my role model.  If I could be half the woman that my role model is then I will turn out to be a great person.

Growing up my role model sometimes pushed me out of my comfort zone.  I didn’t want to be in the marching band but she told me to try it and I ended up liking it.  At the time, I just wanted to go to school and not be a part of any clubs.  I was very shy.

My role model has a smile that is bigger than my own.

I know I don’t tell her this enough but I love my role model.

She encourages my dreams and she is my biggest supporter.  I can go to my role model any time and ask for advice.

Who is my role model?

My mom!!  I’m proud to be her daughter!

Growing up, I heard all the time that I looked exactly like my mom or my mom couldn’t deny that I was her child.

My mom is a wonderful and special person to me.  I’m glad that God chose her to be my mom!  She is the perfect mother for me.