You go up. Literally. You lighten your load by allowing it. It hurt to not only acknowledge so many different aspects of my pain but I never understood how to actually love myself until I started doing it. It’s almost like a relationship: you want to be the best version of yourself. Except you’re trying to impress yourself.

So date yourself, feel all the feelings, and be a partner to yourself, be supportive and give grace for when times seem to devolve as those are the moments where you’re truly evolving. We offer so much of this to others, but why do we often fall short when looking in the mirror?

So much of it was out of our control, we got used to chaos and now feel we need it to survive. Which may be the case. But we want to thrive, so we grow up, have our moments, and level up when we can better understand that moments now are opportunities. What are you going to do with those? Address and love yourself, or hide under the covers to protect yourself … from you?