YOU ARE WHOLE
whole enough whole enough whole enough
“You must first love yourself before you love another. By accepting yourself and joyfully being what you are, you fulfill your own abilities, and your simple presence can make others happy.” – The Nature of Personal Reality
Why do we seek acceptance? Why do we search for someone or something to make us feel whole?
We all know that we’re not perfect. We have bad habits, negative tendencies, and sometimes controversial beliefs. But does that mean that we are less of a person? Depending on how we were raised, society taught us to search for people or things to “fill the holes” from our childhood. Essentially, we had to find a way to fix ourselves.
Whether it’s conscious or not, we are drawn to what we’re missing or have missed out on. The most common example is love. The love of a mother or father who wasn’t there for us, or abandoned us altogether. Even if we had the best childhood we still search for that love in a partner. We want someone who will help us feel complete and full. Perhaps this need is wired into us as humans, but even so, before we can truly love anyone else we have to love ourselves first.
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Our lives are consumed with the search for approval. We need approval from our boss on a job well done. We strive to make our parents proud of us. And we check in with our friends and partner to make sure there’s still a mutual connection. We are constantly seeking this external approval, which is really just searching for acceptance. We need acceptance from those around us because it tells us that we fit in, that we’re liked, and that we are whole.
Seeking this sense of wholeness from those around us is risky because it ties our self-worth into what others think and say. If we continue to rely on the thoughts and beliefs of others we will never find happiness, because we can’t please everyone. There will always be someone in our lives that will put us down because it makes them feel better. Instead, we should choose to find our own approval and wholeness from within us. But first we must already have love for ourselves.
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When we decide to love ourselves completely, it comes with the condition that we don’t need anyone or anything else to feel complete. Once we have this self-love it won’t matter what anyone else says about us because we know that we are whole. We are enough. Then anyone who comes into our life will complement who we are, not complete us. For there is nothing more we need than to be ourselves.
