I’m not talking about looking in the mirror and appreciating what you see staring back at you. Nor I am referring to being proud of a work accomplishment, running a triathlon, or remembering a friend’s birthday without a Facebook reminder. Self-love is about something deeper than these important – yet surface – traits. It’s about giving into the feeling of satiety within your skin. It’s about loosening a grip on those thoughts of what you are doing wrong. It’s about sitting across from another person and feeling safe, warm, and easy in their gaze.

Sometimes I wonder if there was ever a time that I didn’t believe in a compass that could help direct me; I think these times existed. I’m almost saddened for the former me who couldn’t take solace in the ebb-and-flow of life, and the deeper meanings that came with depression, anger, resentment. The wish for it to all be over, and yet thinking it would be with me for the rest of my life. It certainly is hard to be optimistic when all you have in your hands are those biting, diminishing feelings.

What we think is going to be paradise doesn’t always turn out that way. What happens when we can’t escape?