As Valentine’s Day comes near, I find myself thinking about my Dad. I know, that might sound kind of weird, but to me Valentine’s Day isn’t just about romantic love. It’s about the love you have inside of you to give to everyone you care about in life. I didn’t always feel I was worthy of love because I grew up craving a fatherly love I could not find. Across America and around the world, there are thousands of girls like me who fall prey to exploitative or abusive men who take advantage of girls who are vulnerable from that sense of abandonment by their dads. In fact, I’d say at the core of trafficking for so many of us is that feeling that your Dad left you. It makes you feel like “what’s so unloveable about me that even my dad would leave me?”
When I was a little girl, my dad was not around so that feeling of fatherly love was gone, too. I chased after that love so hard that I fell into the hands of more than one trafficker and abusive man. They could feel that desperate pull in my heart and they used that to hurt me. I even knew they were doing it but I thought I could just love them so much that they would eventually treat me how I deserved. This never happened. In fact, I didn’t find true love until I learned to first accept that I am WORTHY of love. I am worth being loved the right way EVERY SINGLE DAY. Those men who took advantage of me, hurt me, bought and sold me can never get to me again because the shield around my heart is my own real self love.
I started to love myself after I became a mother because I love my children and I have 2 girls. I see them mimicking how I talk and walk. They will learn how to love themselves from me, too. This breaks my heart sometimes, but my first daughter’s father is not really in her life, either. So, I had to be both the mother and father to her. I didn’t want her to go through what I’ve been through so I teach her to stand up for herself and not settle for less. She will not fall for abusive men like I did. Now, when I’m making choices in life, I ask myself what I would want for my little girls and that is how I make my choices. When you see the world around you through your child’s eyes, life can become so simple.
It took me a long time to gain self love and I say that because I was settling for things that wasn’t love. When being a child at 14 I had times in my life where I wanted to commit suicide because of all the traumatic experience I had encounter as a child. I would cry out, “why me” and not want to be in this world anymore. I honestly believed no one would care if I was alive.
I recently learned of the story of the woman as a Phoenix who must first burn down to the ground to sift through the ashes and rise up to become the real woman she is inside. I have sat in the ashes of my own self hate and anger and have come up to find the real Ashley.
If anyone hurts you or exploits you, that is not love. Love doesn’t hurt. It heals.
You want to set a high standard for yourself and never give up on your dreams or goals because you have been destroyed in your past or maybe even in your future. You have healthy relationships which means you rely on each other for mutual support but still maintain your identity as a unique and beautiful individual it also contain a good weight of balance. Your self esteem does not depend on them. That is called a toxic relationship. A toxic relationship is characterized by insecurity, self-centeredness, dominance, and MAJOR CONTROL. So, boundaries are a big part of love.
Look at it like this: when people are vulnerable like I was, they tend to grab the lowest hanging fruit on the tree because its’ easy to grab and they are scared they can’t make it to the top. Well, the best fruit is at the top of the tree so practice that self love and you’ll be strong enough to get that beautiful top fruit that you deserve, girl. Also, if you fall sometimes, that’s okay. Chose people in your life who will be there to help you get up and remind you not to grab the half rotten fruit at the bottom.
So, this Valentine’s Day, I’m going to accept the good love in my life and remind myself that it was my own willingness to love myself and chose the people who truly loved me that has led me to my sweet man of a Valentine this year. I sure hope you all give yourself a little love this Valentine’s, too.
Ashley Lowe is an advocacy lab associate at Karana Rising as well as a jewelry designer, mother, student and poet.
