We Accept the Love We Think We Deserve

Ah, yes… the infamous quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I know it sounds cliche, but I have been having these frequent conversations with the people that I value in my life where they prove that quote to be very true.

We are hard on ourselves. It’s just a fact. We are constantly viewing the things we do, the way we look, and how we act all with the most critical of lenses. We force ourselves out of our comfort zones in hopes of reaching great heights and achieving amazing things, only to fall flat on our asses. And you know what? Sometimes we need to.

I am a firm believer in ‘what is meant for me will come to me’, but sometimes it is hard to remember that. I put myself into situations of forced love, forced appreciation, forced something just to feel like I am of value. I never sit down and really think about why that is. Maybe it’s a trauma response from not getting the love I so desperately wanted as a kid and thus seek value in what others think, or maybe it’s because I think so little of myself that I search for my missing pieces in the ‘love’ that others give me. Regardless of whether it is real or not.

The thing that I can never wrap my head around is when my friends feel that same exact way.

If you know me, you know how much I love and care for the people that I have in my life. My chosen family: the people that I opt to spend my free nights, days off, and even work days with. This list of people consists of a million different personalities all meshing together to form one coherent group of people that I like to call family. (If you think you aren’t on this list, you probably are… loser.)

Now, with all that said I am sure you can guess that I am always heartbroken when I see that they are struggling through some of the same things that I am.

Self-acceptance. It is harder than it looks. Go back to that statement from earlier about how we are constantly judging ourselves through the most critical of lenses. Now do you understand? Being able to sit down with yourself and say that you are someone of value, someone worth all the love and effort you pour into everyone else’s cup takes guts. It takes work, time, and energy that not a lot of people have or are willing to put into themselves.

The world that we are living in is getting harder and harder to remember that we are all human. We all have pain, joys, trauma. We all have things that we don’t or won’t talk about. We are all working on figuring ourselves out. Here’s the thing: don’t forget that about yourself.

“We accept the love that we think we deserve” is something that used to really resonate with me because I always felt like an extra character in my own life. Anytime someone would say something nice about me or tell me that they love me, I would laugh. I didn’t deserve that energy that they were giving me… right?

The truth is: I do. YOU DO.

Remember that in order to fill someone else’s cup you must first have enough water in your own so that you don’t go thirsty.

I love you.