I thought I'd explain a little why I choose to join Sara in her blog relaunch and why I'll join her in promoting her summer of self love. And why the subject of self love is so important to me....

I grew up with an abusive father and lived with him up until I was 5 and my parents divorced. The effect he had on not only my mothers self worth and esteem but also my brothers and mine is still noticable today.

I guess you could say I was the lucky one, I realised early on that it was his issue not mine, that the things he said and did where not a reflection of me as a person but him and his inner demons. I was able to shed the damage he did to me pretty quickly and now I can honestly say I have forgiven him for what he did to us and I feel sorry for the person he is now because he hasn't really changed and I can't believe he is able to love life the way I am able to love life.

My mum on the other hand is a different story, she just turned 50 was diagnosed with terminal cancer 3 years ago and after being handed her death sentence she realised that she has been living with that abuse and never let go of it. She realises now that she lived under the cloak of that abuse for the past 23 years, that it weighed her down all that time and never allowed her to truly find happiness. And it wasn' t that she was fearfull of the abuse happening again, she had just stopped loving herself and had stopped allowing herself to be herself. Its like what he did to us actually broke her soul. Only now bits of her authentic self are emerging but only in brief moments because part of her is still afraid of herself and of loving who she is.

My little brother is 25, he broke of all contact with our father a little over a year ago, finally made peace with the fact that this was what happend and it wasn't his fault. That he was not to blame and that he could move on, that he is an intelligent person and not an idiot and that he derserves happiness.
Shortly after this he broke of his dysfunctional bordering on abusive (she to him) relationship with his girlfriend started going back to school in the evenings and is enjoying a good job close to home with prospects to grow and climb the ladder of success.
For he first time he is actually happy about his life and himself.

And it wasn't just us three who where affected by this, my mum remarried and we had a little sister, the baby of the family and she was allways doted on by us. However never having seen that self love present in my mum or me (at least not until she was a teenager) she has that same struggle to love herself and accept that she is awesome inside and out.

This is getting long! but all this to show that we lived without truly loving ourselves for a long time, and that the moment each of us decided to change this and start loving ourselves, ridding us of the burden we carried that wasn't ours to carry, life changed. It became better, richer, more beautiful. We got confidence to live our lives the way we want to and we found true happiness.

Now for my mum this is still something that hasn't really happend. She has moments where she is able to let go of this chocking cloak where a bit of her real self pops out and I don't know if she will manage to find that true happiness before she goes since time is running out so very quickly for her....

You see right now, this very moment is the only thing you have and you can spend it loving yourself and in turn being able to give more love , or you can spend it hating yourself and never truly loving this one moment you have right now.
Knowing the difference love makes just for myself makes me want to ensure every person everywhere finds the ability to love themselves, this is why I joined Sara in spreading her summer of self love blog relaunch.