Love is a Decision: How to Build Trust with Yourself

I clicked on a YouTube video the other day—something about how to love yourself—and immediately, before the vid even had a chance to begin playing, my mind went somewhere else. How have I loved someone else? More importantly, how did I first learn to love myself?

And not just fall in love, but rise in it.

Because love is not something we stumble into. Love is a decision. It is not a feeling.

Feelings are fickle. When we treat love like a feeling—like something we fall into—we move as though it ebbs and flows, as though it’s here one day and gone the next. But love—true love—is constant, not fickle. Love—real love, secure love, beautiful, sacred love—is a choice we make over and over again.

And because love is a decision, self-love is a decision, too.

Love and Trust Are Built the Same Way

When I was young, I thought I had fallen in love. But the truth is, I was immature. At the time, that was what I thought love was. I didn’t know what love truly was—what it actually is. I didn’t love myself well, so I misinterpreted the butterflies and feelings and emotions and brain chemistry for love.

Now, I no longer fall in love—I choose it. I decide to love. I rise to meet it.

And I love myself the same way I love others: through trust. Do I mean what I say? Do I say what I mean?

When a man I’m dating tells me he’s going to call—and then he actually does!—it builds trust. When he shows up for me how and when he said he would, I relax into his presence. Okay, he did the thing he said he was going to do. I can trust him. I’m learning to love him. Not for what he’s doing or saying, but for who he is—consistent, thoughtful, caring. Because he’s following through. He’s patient. Kind. Enduring.

When I say I’m going to work out for ten minutes a day, five days a week—and then I actually do it—I am even that much more in love with myself. But when I break the promises I make to myself—when I don’t do what I said I would—it erodes the trust I have with myself. It erodes the love I have for myself. And that erosion? It’s the breeding ground for negative self-talk.

When the man I’m dating doesn’t show up how and when he says he will, he’s on borrowed time. If the guy didn’t call when he said he would, old me would’ve yapped to my friends about it, and together, we’d decide he ain’t worth alladis.

When I don’t show up how and when I say I will… then what?!

In my experience? I hated myself. I hated myself even more than the world around me wanted me to.

But I am worthy of love.

After all, as the Good Book says:

If I do not have love, then I am nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:2 (ICB)

We are all worthy of love. Not only are we worthy of love, but we were created by love, in love, for love, to love!

We Cannot Give What We Don’t Have

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Mark 12:31

But what if you don’t love yourself? What if you don’t trust yourself? What if you’ve spent weeks or months or years—or worse yet, decadesss—breaking promises to yourself? You’ve spent all that time pouring everything into others, never pausing to ask: Do I keep my own promises? How do I really love meee?!

I cannot love anyone more than I love myself because I cannot give what I do not have.

If someone asked me for a billion dollars right now, I’d have to say, “I’m sorry, baby cakes, but I don’t got it.”

But if you ask me for what I do have—if you ask me for what I’ve saved, built, nurtured, and poured into myself—then if I got it, at least you have a chance of me gifting it to you. If I got it, then maybe you can get it too!

When my love is abundant, steady, and overflowing, I give it freely. But when my love for myself is scarce—when I am neglecting, abandoning, and betraying myself—then what I give to others will always come at my own expense.

I’ll come up short.

If you ask me for a billion, and I drain my retirement and investments to give it to you, I’m inevitably going to come up short. And the same is true for love.

Choosing to Show Up for Yourself

This is why keeping my word to myself matters most. This is why I listen when my body tells me, “Hey, you’re getting exhausted.” This is why I pause to ask myself, What do you need? What is my body, my mind, and my spirit saying I need?

This is why I ask myself, several times a day—at least a few times an hour—what I need:

• Do you need a break?
• Do you need to go outside and get some sun? Some fresh air?
• Do you need to listen to your favorite song?
• Do you need to stretch?
• Do you need to phone a friend?
• Do you need to rest?
• Do you need to move your body?
• Do you need water? A snack?
• Do you need to lay down somewhere?
• Do you need to meditate? To pray?
• Do you need a vacation? A staycation?

Loving myself means listening to those needs—and acting on them. Because noticing a need and ignoring it is an act of neglect. And it can be an act of self-betrayal. And depending on how big of an act it is, it can even be self-sabotage.

I do not call it love when someone I’m dating neglects me. So how can I call it love when I neglect myself?

Love is not just what we feel. It’s what we do.

And I am worthy of love.

Those of us with breath in our body were created by God—who, by His very nature, is love! We were created by love, in love, for love, to love!

So let me ask you:

How did you love yourself today? How will you love yourself in this moment? In the next hour? And how will you love those around you well if you don’t love yourself first?