A day ago I was speaking to my close friend and we talked about a recent hub I wrote about putting yourself first. I touched on taking care of and loving yourself more. This is an issue I struggled with for nearly 40 years before I found what I believe is the secret to living an honest and full life. My personal truth is that until you make peace with the past, nothing you do in the future will ever fulfill you or give you a sense of happiness. Peace will forever elude you.

I'm in the process now of having my first book published. I'm in the editing stage now, and the entire theme of the book is about a young woman that buried so much pain, guilt and shame that she could not function in the world properly. She self destructs and eventually climbs her way back up to a sense of normalcy. Her journey is filled with pain, shame, abuse and ultimately addiction to numb the pain, shame, guilt and abuse. The cycle is horrible and many go thru it and never recover.

My friend sent me an email to thank me for sharing the hub about putting yourself first, and this is what he had to say:

"You are right, I never use to put myself first, but now I enjoy me. I enjoy just hanging around by myself. I feel more relaxed and at peace. I enjoy taking walks in the park alone just for me. When I was young, I didn't like myself and I did things to put myself in harms way. I think I was unconsciously trying to take myself out. When I met you, you taught me I should love me regardless of what happened in the past. I sometimes found the hardest person to accept was me. Now that I am getting older and reflect I appreciate myself more. The sad thing is for many they don't live long enough to learn to love themselves. Many of our young people do not understand and they do things to themselves that eventually kill them. Their own actions and choices end up taking them out of this precious life.

Like my dear sister, she never got the chance to get gray hair, or talk about what hurts on her body due to aging, or see how her three kids grow up, or watch her mother grow old. She never got to see her grand-kids. She missed out on so much dying so young. I think she may have had issues with loving herself. I think the unprotected sex and putting up with crap she did gave her an escape from herself. That escape was called AIDS. It aided her life right from this world. Maybe that was her escape from her own pain and issues. I think we do things sometimes subconsciously...I think the pain is the killer of us all, if we let it be."

I was sad when I read what my friend sent me, and I cried because that could have been me. I'm grateful that today I can love me in the purest sense and let go of all the shame, guilt and pain. My rage against myself has turned into a peaceful valley of praise and admiration for what I went thru and how it shaped the woman I am now.

I just want to love and inspire people to love and inspire others....Love yourself better, take a walk on a beach, look up and say "I love me more today".