Self-love is so extremely important. But it’s something that we all struggle with. We may love ourselves when we eat right, when we exercise, when we check off the items on our to-do list. But oh, how quickly we fall to hatred when we see a (God forbid!) stretch mark in the bathroom mirror or the scale creeps up one more pound.

The problem with self-love is that we forget to recognize it’s a process.

You’re not going to reach a perfect point and think, ‘I’ve finally made it! I love myself!’ Because the reality is, you are human and you are forever changing and growing and moving and shifting and gaining and losing and becoming. So instead of waiting to love yourself until you get to a certain point, learn to love yourself in the now. In the process. In the heart of it – whether good, or bad, or somewhere in-between.

I wrote this piece, “This Body Is My Home, And I Will Celebrate It” yesterday because far too often I struggle with self-love, even though I try to be positive and express that positivity outwards and to myself. This piece is about seeing your body as a home. Something that you own, occupy, and dwell in.

“No longer will I find my faults. No longer will I see the parts of me I wish to change before the beauty that defines me. No longer will I compare myself to standards, to perspectives, to unspoken rules of the world around me. Because I am not the world.

I am a home. And each home is different. And this home is mine.

This home with the short waist and the split ends and the tired eyes and the sore heel and the weak back and the thick legs and the strong arms and the curly hair and cheek birthmarks and the scars is mine.

Mine to claim. Mine to own. Mine to love.

So I will love it.”

I don’t know where you are in the journey of self-love, but here is your reminder: Your body is your home. Treat it with love.

To read the piece in it’s entirety, click here: “This Body Is My Home, And I Will Celebrate It.”