Valentines Day 2015

There's a quote that goes something like this:

"You have to love yourself before anyone else can." 

This is something I have been trying to practice a lot over the past few months.... to love myself. That's never been an easy thing for me.

A lot of things took place in my younger days that drilled thoughts that I wasn't worth loving into my head.

See, I've been dangling myself off of the edge of the world for a long time now. Darting from here to there - never able to find peace in my soul. 

Something was wrong. 

After a heartbreak so intense it very nearly killed me - I scattered my life into a million different pieces. 

I wanted everything - and I wanted nothing all at once. 

I couldn't choose between left or right, this road or that.

So I continually did whatever my heart desired, without often thinking of the consequences. It was selfish, sporadic and staggeringly dangerous.  

Through it all, I put myself into some really stupid situations - but I wouldn't change any of it. I regret nothing barring the pain I caused upon others during my outlandish fantasies. 

Over the past few years, I have been in no position to be a girlfriend, a friend or even a daughter.

How could someone love you when you didn't even love yourself?

So my goal was simple - to figure out why I was worth loving. 

That is a lot harder than it may seem... especially for a mid-twenties girl who'd dabbled with drugs and got in too deep before she knew what hit her. 

I think it was the day I had a complete breakdown and made the scariest decision of my life (to tell my parents that I'd been using drugs and that I needed help,) that I started to love myself. 

I made a decision that I was better than this life I was leading and so I changed it. 

It wasn't easy. Far from it. 

There were the cravings... the self-loathing... the actual relapses... the meaningless jobs that I skipped between... becoming a 'mistress' to a married man which you can read about in my latest book being released later this year.

There was the depression and the anxiety, the panic attacks and pure sorrow that fueled my existence. 

It was hard. 

But slowly, very slowly... I started to bloom inside. 

I started to travel and take courses to gain degrees and diplomas. I started writing novels and reading books by the likes of Eckhart Tolle and M. Scott Peck.

I started hiking and surfing, exploring all of the good that the world had to offer.

Traces of a me I'd never known before but had always wanted to started to reveal itself to me.

I was turning into the woman that I had always wanted to become:

Hard-working, ambitious and spiritual. 

There was a blanket of peace and tranquility that had wrapped itself snugly around me that I'd never thought I'd find. 

I was starting to forgive myself.

Today, on the 14th February 2015, I can confidently say that I am happy. 

I have had a hard past filled with darkened corners, severe heartache and turmoil... but I have gotten through it. 

I found the light at the end of the tunnel. 

So I'll end today's post like this:

Don't try and find happiness through someone else. 

Find happiness within yourself and then share that happiness with others. 

Don't rely on someone else to take away your pain and make you feel loved. 

Make yourself feel loved. 

You're worth it.

Happy Valentines Day.