"Have you ever been in a situation where you were swept off you feet? Where everything seemed beautiful and possible; where everything seemed magical? Whether your answer is Yes or No, chances are, this is why this bookmark has drawn you here. 

We often feel that love is something that someone 'Needs to fill us up' for us to burst with joy. Though it is beautiful to experience the feeling of being loved, however there is another story to it. What most of us don't realise is that love isn't something external. Instead, love is something internal. The feeling joy and ecstasy that we get when we are in love can be achieved without the presence of someone else. In fact, it 'NEEDS' to be achieved without the presence of someone else for us to have any hope of a happily ever after...

At some point, all of us go through life expecting others to enter our experiences in order to make it a life worth living. What we don't realise is, by doing that, we not only give away our power to feel loved, but we also give away our self-worth for someone else to do as they wish. We indirectly give away our ability to love ourselves and to deem ourselves unworthy of love by placing it in the hands for others to judge. 

However what we don't see is that love begins with us. It begins with our ability to love ourselves unconditionally until it gets to a point of 'Joy'. It begins with our ability to love our flaws and imperfections, and to see them as the perfect manifestation of life. A simple practise that you could do is to look yourself deep in your eyes in a mirror, and say to yourself, 'I Love You'. In doing that, you'll begin to notice a movement in your body that either accepts or rejects that statement.

By recognising we reject ourselves, we'll start to see that our search of love has never been about someone else loving us, but it has been about us loving ourselves. So what do you do if you find yourself rejecting who you are?

The best way we know how is to look yourself in the mirror, and say to yourself 7 things that you're proud of; after which, you conclude by saying, I Love You ___(Your Name)____. By doing that twice a day, once when you wake up and once before you go to bed, you are not only celebrating the little wins of your day, but you're starting to give yourself the credit that you deserve.

With consistency, you'll reach a point where you are perfectly comfortable with saying the words 'I Love You' to yourself; and the moment you get there, you'll start to realise that you no longer need the validation or love from others to feel complete or joyful; because you know, that you must be the 'FIRST' and the 'BEST' example of how the world should really love you."

P/s: This article was taken from the wisdom in "So This Is Love"; a bookmark from our 'Relationship, Love & Happiness' collection.