I want to talk about something that might ruffle you a little. One of the most valuable things I did in rebuilding my life was to really accept my truth and answer one question honestly. How much do you truly love yourself?

There is a big difference between the answer that comes from your mind and the answer that comes from looking at your life.

Not your social media, not what you say about yourself, not even whether you enjoy your own company. The real answer is in what you accept. How well do others love you? What do you tolerate? What do you allow to continue?

Because the way you love yourself is revealed by what you allow, not what you say.

I started looking at it differently. Instead of trying to measure love, I asked myself something simpler. Do you act for yourself in the same way that you would act for your child?

That question changed everything for me.

Having a child was catalytic. The way I showed up to love her was instinctive. She was innocent, pure, deeply connected, and full of love. Being around that kind of love elevates you. It demands more from you.

And then I had to ask myself, do you love yourself the way you love your child?

No. I didn’t.

When I looked at my life, what I was accepting was so far below what I would ever accept for her. And that hit me in a way that I couldn’t ignore.

I had to grieve that.

I had to grieve the reality that the reason I didn’t love myself to that level was because I had not been loved to that level.

It was a hard pill to swallow. But it was also liberating.

Because it meant it wasn’t my fault. But it also meant that now that I could see it, if I didn’t choose differently, that was on me.

Two things happened from that realisation.

I was able to liberate myself from the level of love I had been accepting, and I chose to love myself differently. I became that mother to myself.

And I was able to release my parents. Because I could see it wasn’t about blame. It was a pattern. It goes back and back and back. If I didn’t love myself the way I loved my child, maybe my mother loved me more than she loved herself. And maybe her mother before her.

At some point, someone has to see it and choose differently.

For me, that was the moment I chose radical self-love.

And the difference between self-love and radical self-love is not the idea. It is the standard.

Radical self-love is a daily decision. It is the decision to stop accepting anything that is not love.

It is the decision to treat yourself with the same care, protection and devotion that you would give your child.

From there, everything became clearer.

It became very simple. Not easy, but simple.

It was either love or not love.

Am I allowing this or am I not?

The more I connected to the love I had for my child, the more it showed me everything in my life that was not that.

And it didn’t feel subtle. It felt loud. Agitating. Impossible to ignore.

I could see trauma, pain, disappointment, anger, grief. I could see the ways I had been tolerating less. And I couldn’t unsee it.

Because once you experience unconditional love, the contrast becomes undeniable.

I also started to understand that love wasn’t something outside of me.

Before, I had thought of love as something that came from other people or from something external. But becoming a mother changed that.

I realised that the source of that love was in me.

I had created it. I had felt it. And I could access it.

So I kept going back into my body. Back into that place of connection.

I started strengthening my capacity to feel love, to feel pleasure, to feel joy, and to let that move through every part of me.

And that changed my standard.

Because when you feel that level of love in your body, you cannot keep accepting things that are not aligned with it.

You just can’t.

So I stopped.

No more excuses.

No more ignoring red flags.

No more crossing my own boundaries.

No more accepting less than what I knew was love.

And that is the real lesson.

Self-love is not something you say. It is something you live.

It is in the choices you make every day. It is in what you allow to stay in your life and what you decide to walk away from.

Radical self-love is the moment you decide that you will no longer accept anything less than the love you know is possible.

Not for your child.

And not for yourself.

Because when you love yourself at that level, everything changes.

Your standards change.

Your relationships change.

Your life changes.

And you stop settling for anything that asks you to be less than that.