We are always surrounded by our caregivers and also by someone who “chooses” to love us. They come with a whole package of their unique experiences, coping mechanisms, ways of displaying love. With this, it's so easy to get lost in the experience and to not let that define the way we perceive love! The most real and fulfilling way of defining love is by finding and being aware of our authentic selves.-That’s what you hear everyone say, don't you? And I am pretty sure you have tried all the ways to reach there. Some of us feel we love ourselves enough but then when put into certain situations, it is revealed to us this huge chunk of missing self-love. Finding this missing part (which I haven't found it yet but hope to one day) will help break this continuous chain of hurt generations.

The things which ended up destroying you emotionally were in no way your punishment! It was someone else's cry of help and you ended up being their unfortunate pawn.

How do I know this you ask? I don't actually. But with all those little experiences I have had, I could deduce this cool thing and it helped me to not internalize other people’s projections. Not only that but also the fact I have put myself into situations where I brought with me my own unhealed experiences and projected them onto others. So to be honest, I am guilty too. That's how you know that it runs in circles.

This article is for those who keep sinking in guilt everyday or would have drowned at this point,

for those who live and dedicate their entire lives in search of validation from that one person,

for those who had to hear that they never deserve love in their whole life and that they would end up alone,

for those who will live their whole life asking themselves what went wrong or why were they never enough!

I am not going to sit here and write those easy but empty words which go like- “None of the above statements is true”. Because I know you won't believe me. And that's normal. But what I will do is write something which you actually need to hear.

This is for all those beautiful people to find peace with the fact that it was never about them. It could have been about the other person who couldn't love you the right way. They showed up with their insecurities and in turn, broke you down. It sucks, doesn’t it? It crushes the safeguard of our self-esteem into pieces. It may seem that forgiveness is the key here. It's not.

It's rather remembering that we are not what they tell us we are.

That we are not our trauma.
That we are not what people define us.
That we are not our illnesses.
That we are not our mistakes.
That world will not be better if we're dead.

But instead,
We are our choices.
We are our kindness.
We are our healing.
We are how we decide to show up when everything turns down.

We are so worthy of life and love.
We are COMPLETE!!
We are ENOUGH!!

All of the above statements are not written to make you feel good or to romanticize your journey. They are inherent qualities that you already have. No one can take them away from you. That's you. Completely and entirely YOU! That's what makes it real.

All battles are not ours to fight. We cannot fix others but yes we can fight our own and heal ourselves. Neither can we be a sufferer for the rest of our lives. For how long can you carry that age-old hurt, anger, rage, fear and keep carrying it down with you. How about we deal with it as adults so that this chain ends here itself and the new lives can be healthier, happy, and full of life?

That sounds nice, doesn't it? But it requires a lot of love and courage to unlearn toxic behavior and to keep learning a lot of healthy ways instead. Again, I am well aware that this is easier said than done. But isn’t it better to know where you are supposed to go rather than walking mindlessly? I still haven't reached there yet. I don't even know if I will. But at least I know what my destination is. One way or other, we are reaching there.

I always wonder how are you supposed to carry on if you don't love your own home, which is you? And no, this does not count in the fact that you managed to survive until now without looking inwards. But did you know that it does not have to be this way? You end up self-sabotaging your relationships (it's not a fancy term, it's legit) without you even knowing it. It's a whole new process and almost feels like a self-betrayal when you decode all this and end up having the biggest shock of your life.

You can move on and heal yourself by having the most powerful gift that anyone can have which is the ability to love and live within their own company. That comes with unconditional acceptance (Still trying to figure out how do you unconditionally accept all your inherent traits without your mind revolting) But it has been beautiful nonetheless. It's all about falling in love with the journey of reaching there rather than just making sure I end up in that magical place that is nowhere to be seen yet.

I intend on reaching there by asking myself these thought-provoking questions which remind me how and why am I supposed to move forward in my journey. I hope they help you too.

• Can we forgive ourselves for the mistakes we made?
• Can we stop being so mean to ourselves when there are thousands of others who are already doing that to us?
• Are we strong enough to realize that people's judgment is more about them and not about us?
• Are we virtuous enough to keep correcting ourselves and healing in the process??
• Can we love ourselves enough that we wouldn't have to beg another soul to do that for us?
• Can we please come back home?

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