Before you love another, love yourself first.
Before you marry another, marry yourself first.
This article is in service of the divine, for it is not me that serves, it is the soul within.
If only someone would have told me all those years ago when I was just 22 that a man doesn’t save you but rather you save yourself, then I wouldn’t have wound up getting a divorce at the age of 27. But you know what they say, everything always happens for a reason and believe it or not, I have come to believe it as true.
No matter how challenging sometimes this concept can be, especially in the midst of heartache, the last thing you want to do is actually admit to yourself that there is some learning within this.
But before we dive deeper, I wonder have you too placed your faith in this story?
“Once you meet your prince charming everything will fall into place and you will live happily ever after”.
Yet aren’t we tired as women of placing our worth & lovability in the hands of another?
Well, I am here to tell you without judgment, for we all have been fed this lie that you have merely suffered at the brunt of this mistruth. So know it is not your fault as we have all built up this fantasy in our heads of how life should be as it is really our growing into adulthood and life not meeting our illusionary expectations that causes so much suffering.
How do I know? Well because that was me.
I had the perfect dream wedding abroad, the picturesque sunset, the man who showed the perfect display of affection “publicly”, yet within there was something gnawing away at me because I was so deeply in love with this man that I was willing to put my own happiness aside.
Does this sound familiar?
You were willing to love another at the expense of setting yourself aside?
As a result of this, I tolerated behavior that quite frankly no woman deserves but I was so afraid to be without this man, I was so afraid of failure, that I decided to stay in a relationship that was destructive to my soul, suppressing my own intuition that was warning me that this was not true of heart.
Why You Need to Love Yourself First Before Loving Another
As women, we have been taught to put other people’s happiness before our own for generations and quite frankly it is this core belief that is contributing to worldwide suffering. This one thing has been so destructive as we have tolerated treatment that reflects less than who we are.
Evidently I was so unhappy because my soul was deprived of its true nature and the consequence of this detrimental choice was the breakdown of my body, my health soon spiraled downhill and my body slowly deteriorated because you guessed it, I settled for less than my worth.
What I have gained from this experience is the inner knowing that as long as you believe you cannot be loved then you will continue to attract people in your life who will provide you with evidence that back up you are exactly that.
You Deserve to Be Loved
If you think you are not worthy of love, you better believe someone will come along and align with exactly that because what you think always appears to be true.
Who you “think” you are will always be reflected back to you and not who you really are, deep down at the core of your being.
As challenging as this next concept will be for you to comprehend, as we have all been conditioned to play the blame game, there is not one person to blame for these experiences as I merely called into my life someone to prove to me, “Hayley you are just not worthy”!.
I share these truths with compassion and forgiveness in my heart, in the knowledge I knew no better as it was merely learned behavior that was embedded in me from a young age due to childhood trauma.
It is your conditioned self that is causing you suffering for you have internalized deep-rooted beliefs that are not yours ultimately reflecting back a life that does not align with you, my hope is you may carry this awareness forward with you in your life to make wiser choices in regards to relationships.
My greatest lesson from all of this, is to marry yourself before you can marry another.
To get to the truth of who you are and commit to that, for only when you find the truth of who you are, can your true love find you.
Evidently you are not to marry yourself physically, but the power does lie within marrying yourself intentionally.
You Are Ready for This
Because the truth is, are you ready for this?
No one is going to love you until you love yourself because it is not the other person’s flaws we can not live with, it is actually our own.
As women we have been conditioned to mold ourselves into the role of “perfect Polly” but what is wrong with being wildly authentically vulnerably raw because surely if we can come to love all of us then someone-else will to, and their imperfections won’t be so irritating because we will have come to love our own, that is the key.
This is what I have learned:
- It was me and it will always be me! I do not need nor do I seek to rely on anyone outside of self for everything I ever needed was right here within me, the person I was seeking all this time was me, the true me, and there is no better feeling than knowing your worth and loving yourself right through to your core because it means your no longer seeking love and validation from outside of you, so anything else is merely a blessing because you already have what you need within you.
- Fulfillment was never something to be found outside of me, it was always a state within me and I do not need outside resources to validate who I am because I already know and this is my silver lining, I was never to find who I am in things or external success, riches or in the need to settle for any form of a romantic relationship, I found it in me, it was here all along, I just couldn’t see because I was looking in all the wrong places, redirecting my attention from within self.
So if you are going to offer yourself anything, let it be this, with the intention to marry yourself, get to know her, see her, feel her, hear her and most importantly be with her without judgment, hold the space for her, be the one who is there for her, always, and last of all get to know your most quaint traits and learn to love them cause truth is sister there is only you and there will only ever be you so you may as well learn to love her, exactly as she is.
P.S. You may love and then fall out of love with you when you’re imperfectly perfect and that is OK as long as in the end you always come back to love, we are all human beings knowing that you will always be love and nothing can ever separate you from this truth,
I’ve got you!
For you are source within.
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Hayley Woodgate
It is her own journey healing trauma which liberated Hayley from dysfunctional and toxic relationships, crippling low self worth, the birth and death of a destructive marriage, chronic illness and the breakdown of her body, anxiety, depression and little to no trust in her self that led her to her true calling as miracles unfolded to support her in breaking free, this ignited the desire to support others in realigning with their true authentic self to reignite their true purpose.You can find more of her work on HayleyWoodgate.co.uk or you can follow her on Facebook Instagram and Twitter.
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