You're worth fighting for...

Relationships are hard.
They can be exhausting and sometimes hurtful
and yet they teach us everything we need to know about ourselves.
We fall in and out of bad relationships clinging to the idea that without someone else's love,
we are nothing.

One of my favorite movie quotes is from,
The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
That movie is a great lesson in defining who we really are.
A line that was a defining moment for me was,
"We accept the love we think we deserve."

I remember watching that movie for the first time and being struck so hard it was as if a lightning bolt had just cast through my living room and slammed me into my couch.

We accept the love we think we deserve....

As children, our value is given to us by our parents.
They teach us how to be kind and accepting and they give us our worth.
But as adults, we look to society to re-affirm the things that have been taught,
or to correct the things that were missed.

Somehow we get to this point where we completely neglect everything we know and have felt about ourselves, and start letting the media and other people dictate all of that for us.

We re-define beauty to mean a size zero with long legs, flawless skin, perfect teeth, great hair..
And as we look in the mirror, seeing all of the qualities we lack, we start to diminish.
Our confidence slowly fades and we become empty vessels clinging to other people to tell us how amazing we are.

I have sat and listened to many of my girlfriends complain about their significant others never complimenting them, telling them they're beautiful, commenting on their outfits, ultimately setting their "worth".
And then there are the times when partners feed into the negative, telling them they need to lose weight, or eat more because they're too thin.
Sometimes it's as if they can't win.

But the thing is, other people do not determine our worth.
We were not made to be torn down or defined by the judgement of others.

One of the best things a guy has ever said to me was how much he appreciated that I do not accept anything but a man's best and that I expect them to take my feelings into just as much consideration as their own.

Do you hear that ladies???
He APPRECIATED it!!

And he was right.
I am picky, not because I don't want a guy to meet my standards,
but because I know that I am the type of woman who is worth fighting for.
And whoever I end up with, does not determine my worth.
In fact, it determines theirs.

Confidence is something that we all have to work on, men and women.
It doesn't come naturally to all of us and can often be a real struggle.
But if you're not happy with how things are, then move.
Make a change.
You are not a tree.
You are not rooted to how you are feeling, forever.

There comes a point where we have to quit loving the idea of someone loving us,
and actually love ourselves.

Because the only way to truly be happy with someone else,
is to quit putting all of your value in their hands.

The only one who holds your value, is you.You will either meet great, kind people, or you can be great, kind people.
Where you come from and what you've been through is not who you are.

You're going to go through many relationships and be torn down many times.
Sometimes that just happens.
But someday someone is going to hug you tight enough, that those broken pieces stick together again.

You have to make the choice to be who you are and accept yourself,
and stop trying to be who the world wants you to be.

Because it's not who you are that holds you back,
it's who you think you're not.I think we put a lot of pressure on relationships to give us all of our happiness.
We think that other people can fix all of the broken parts inside of us.
In some ways, I'm sure that's true.
But it's not fair to put someone in that position.
It's not fair to constantly turn to someone, expecting them to give you purpose.

Often times we put the same kind of value on sex.
We push intimacy and use it as a tool to define our own beauty and excellence.
We want to feel accepted, so we let people pressure us into it.
But it should never be that way.
Because we are ALL worth waiting for.
I don't care what he/she says.
I don't care if they "love" you.
I don't care if they'll leave you.
You are and always will be worth waiting for..

Sure, I think as partners we should compliment each other and remind one another what we love about them and what we see in them.
But we first have to see the good in ourselves, before we can ever accept that from others.
We have to know that we are all AWESOME!
We have to learn to carry ourselves high and expect people to treat us the way we deserve to be treated.
Like the golden rule,
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
(or something like that..)

I want other women to feel empowered and know that they ARE worth better than they think.
I want them not to frown when someone finds their imperfections.
Because guess what, we are ALL imperfect.
That's what makes us us.

So my advice to you all, is to understand your worth and to quit putting that in the hand of others,
and to accept the love you truly deserve, because it's a lot!And to understand that YOU are and always will be worth fighting for.