Hi friends,
How’s it going today? Today in the Hindu culture it’s brother and sister day. We call this day Raksha Bandhan. Today in the Hindu culture a sister will tie her brother or someone akin a cotton bracelet (rakhi) who in return treats his sister, either giving a gift, money or something else.
There’s a lot of sweet stuff around the house right now. When you tie a rakhi for your brother or someone akin you put a slice of Indian sweetmeat (sweet delicacy) in their mouth. On this day, you will find Barfi as the most popular sweetmeat around.
Now, this brings us very sweetly into the topic of self-love vs self-worth.
Firstly, let’s look at what isn’t self-love.
Self-love isn’t:
– It isn’t being self-absorbed
– It isn’t an act of selfishness
– It isn’t ego, pride, arrogance, negative attitudes
What is self-love?
– Self-love is the ability to hold oneself in the highest regard (esteem) and to have confidence in one’s worth no matter what happens externally i.e. around a person.
What would this mean in more simple words?
For example, self-love is speaking lovingly to yourself, being kind to yourself, trusting yourself, believing in yourself (important to believe that you are deserving), being forgiving to yourself, or even having compassion for yourself.
What isn’t self-worth?
– Self-worth is not when you are wearing/having an expensive material object, for example, a garment or the most expensive garment that gives you a sense of value/worth.
Let me see how I would describe self-worth?
To me, it’s more like making an invaluable (garment) piece of material look incredibly worthy of the person wearing it i.e. because the person wearing it believes highly in their being. That their being will bring out the best of the garment. – T. Dench Patel, 3 August 2020, 15:19
Think about how many people in this world who think the fastest cars, most expensive cars in our material world make them look cool, beautiful or worthy. How many people can truly believe the concept that you can make a car look sexy, fast or extremely expensive? This is the only reason why I will have a lot of respect for the car’s maker and the racer – T. Dench Patel, 3 August 2020, 15:24
Do you see why self-love and mastering self-love is a challenge for so many people? It takes bravery to be you in the world of limiting beliefs (we are billions on this planet) in your unique proposition to choose you before anyone else. You should, you should choose you not in a self-destructive or selfish manner.
Let me give you an example if you have been following my story on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or Twitter and if not let me tell you briefly what happened so you can understand the last piece of the sentence in the paragraph above where I talk about bravery to be you in this world of limiting beliefs (we are billions on this planet) in your unique proposition and to choose you before anyone else. Please understand that this is not to brag. I want to show you something important.
Between the ages of twenty-two to the current, I have received many opportunities to have an arranged marriage, being a foreigner at the age of twenty-one I made an active choice that I wanted to own my entire life because I have seen how women in my culture lived sacrificing their dreams heck even their purposes which have only become an awareness over recent years. Being a foreigner, as time went on people took no interest in who I was as a person more interest was paid to what passport I had, the race I came from, and a string of assumptions following that. Being a foreigner, and a person who was/is still pretty down to earth the assumption shoved onto society then onto an immigrant through the “system” is one where you are expected to have less self-value/self-worth even though you would never treat yourself like that. A lot of immigrants had to play a game, a game where you were sure that authenticity would get you into trouble (I hope this will no longer be the case).
So, eventually, when you get told something for too long, get shoved with other people’s limiting beliefs, society’s assumptions, with the odds against you plus the system the chances are really slim, even your age plays a role because you too end up starting to believe the nonsense. So during the last eighteen years since leaving South Africa at the age of twenty-one with one thousand three hundred pounds to my name, I became in “demand” with the interest around arranged marriage, but this, even if I didn’t want to go into one, to get out of the “system” I was offered numerous offers to get married with people out of my own culture. Reluctant, I believed I could do this myself, me and the system, I could actually come out as the winner, then hopeless times arrive, I finally choose the wrong relationship at the worst possible time in history thinking we’re going to make it happen, I end up in a relationship with domestic violence. I remove myself off that, still fighting the system and even the patriot (the ex-partner) of the system, ending up in court and fighting deportation etc. (you can read all this in the subsequent articles) I still get offered by people to marry them for the papers so I can get out of the system.
Guess what?
This has become the highest/greatest lesson of self-love I have faced in my life and probably the greatest epiphanies of all in the history of my life so far. I made a promise to myself in the year two thousand and fourteen that I will not ever sell my life for the system and give it to someone else to own for the system. I will fight my hardest because only I know my truth like no one else does, and if I ever have to choose, choose between someone I am not one hundred percent in love with for the system, then I choose me and I will gladly walk away, leaving the corrupt system to self-destruct (with the hope there would come a day). It was basically the choice I have made, that this time and forever I will hold my life, the gift of life I have been given on this planet with the highest regard, and not let anyone own it but me, not let anyone take it away but the source (after the experience with domestic violence). No one else gets to have that power. No one can, but the source can give you life and take your life the rest is up to you, it’s up to you to hold and conduct your life with the highest regard for yourself with the help of the divine in whichever way, shape or form it arrives in, then, let it pour out of you and see the magic happen. – T. Dench Patel, 3 August 2020, 16:03
Always choose love (you), when you get this, because when the right wife/husband/partner/relationship arrives you will automatically choose what is right, and as I said in my previous article, love always wins, love even beats the system, even though the system has been known to challenge couples, it’s the strongest love that wins. I can successfully and with full confidence tell you this because I have seen so many things beyond your secure world (if you have never been an immigrant) on what really goes under in that world, the stories, the fake marriages, the mixed emotions, the job losses, the abuse, fake love, marriages becoming contracts, blackmail, good immigrants who the system “assumes” through the third world, first world “standards” only to ruin, and disappoint honest and good people.
This is why when I was told that I couldn’t appeal my case in the year two thousand and nineteen, I refused to take marriage for papers and kept the promise I made to myself in the year two thousand and fourteen, I felt no spark in me, and walked away for once and for all, quite relieved that master and commander has finally ended after eighteen years of just living in ways where I was trying not to get caught up in the system, living with the system, and then trying to get out of the system. The corrupt system might think it’s won only this time it did not eliminate, have more of or less of any love I had inside of me for myself. I walked away with my life fully intact (not any less or more of internal damage either), for me to own one hundred percent. The winner was self-love, finally, finally self-mastered. – T. Dench Patel, 3 August 2020 – 16:20
You can’t or won’t be able to appreciate self-love until you really put it into practice, and to get the greatest reward and understanding of it there usually is a test. The more tests you take and conquer (oblivious titles) is what makes/converts you into self-worth i.e. your intrinsic value. Just knowing it isn’t enough, but going through it, is everything. – T. Dench Patel, 3 August 2020 – 16:23
Self-love is so important that it attracts what you believe you’re worthy of.
For further reading, I want also to leave you with these resources
Yours sincerely,
T. Dench Patel
Thank you for the comments and support. Thank you for offering to donate if there was a donate button on here. I prefer not to take donations. You can support me by purchasing my books (Paperback or Kindle), The South African: True Colours, The South African: Roamer, or my children’s book Light. These books can be found on Amazon mainly and other sites in your country.
The audiobook for The South African: True Colours is available on iTunes, Apple, and Audible. The South African: Roamer and Light will be released soon.
Note: Do keep referring back to this site as much as possible, as I grow, a more profound perspective may form and so I will always come back to each of these articles to re-evaluate them.
