
The art of self-love
When was the last time you told someone you love that you loved them? Would you ever tell your best friend how ugly they look? What an unattractive body they have? How unappreciated and worthless their presence is and how they didn’t deserve to be loved? Would you ever tell them all the harsh words you keep telling yourself? Will you ever have any friends left if you speak to them the way you keep speaking to yourself?
If your answer is a typical “no”, and if there is a huge disconnect between the stories you tell everyone and your reality, between the way you treat others and the way you treat and think of yourself that means that you haven’t understood what self-love is truly about…
If you do not treat yourself as you would treat someone you love, you’ll never feel the love that flows from your core.
The truth is that we are too hypocrite to admit that we are that cruel… to ourselves!!
We are hypocrite because we care too much about others’ feelings yet we are too cruel and merciless when it comes to our own.
We are hypocrite because we pretend to be friendly and nice to everyone else except to the person we see in the mirror, who has been through so much but is till standing, and who deserves to be loved and appreciated more than anyone else in this world…
We are hypocrite because we offer help and support for everyone around us yet we sabotage ourselves, we encourage others to thrive and do their best yet we belittle ourselves and underestimate our own capacities.
We don’t have the courage to admit that after all what that person in the mirror has done for our sake, we are not even able to tell them how much we love them or how much we are grateful for having them staying by our side in our lowest and for the rest of our lives, how thankful we should be for having them taking our backs when things start to shake, for accepting us unconditionally and for being our only allies in our life journey.
The truth is quite the opposite; the truth is that we value everything else more than we do when it comes to our own dreams, our self-worth and self-esteem; the truth is that we don’t cause people we love sleepless nights or beat them up for the smallest mistake; the truth is that we treat ourselves like someone worthy of contempt, disdain, and indifference.
The truth is that we are too harsh on ourselves.
It’s ironic because it’s often easier to be kind and gentle toward others than toward ourselves, because we wait for others to love and accept us the way we are without being able to do this to ourselves.
I know it’s so cliché to talk about self-love and self-acceptance and I don’t want to sound like I’m just putting strong words and deep quotes together in order to desperately get extra views… Self-love isn’t about beautiful quotes or putting strong words together, self-love is not a choice … It’s far stronger and more important than being a choice we can choose not to make, self-love is a necessity… we MUST love ourselves.
What puts me in the position to talk about self-love?
Well, let me tell you that I have been there before and I know how it feels to obsess over mistakes from your past, to dwell on things and second guess everything you do; how lifeless it feels to be dead inside; how lonely it feels when even you don’t believe in yourself any longer; how hard it is to keep endlessly replaying embarrassing moments and how it is even harder to feel freshly embarrassed each time you do; how meaningless it is to live without being able to love the person you are; how disappointing it is to fail to forgive yourself for being a human; how suffocating it is to keep hearing those judgmental voices from the past and how hard it is to deal with that hidden residue of toxic shame each time that a past memory crosses your head which makes it even harder to move on… And how each day will become a struggle to keep your head above water.
I’m writing this with so much love and emotions out of a personal experience and a long journey of self-discovering and self-love. I’m not claiming that my journey is complete but I hope that you will find your way to love yourself and embrace your past sins without regrets. I hope that you will be able to be happy and proud with the person you’re becoming and to actually find the courage to live and love while you’re still alive.
WHAT IS SELF-LOVE ABOUT?
Well, self-love is a large concept and we are often confused when it comes to giving a proper definition to it. Being selfish, narcissistic and egocentric are the first words that pop up in our heads, self-love is often connected to a weird form of narcissism or delusional way of not acknowledging anything wrong you have done or not taking responsibility for yourself but the truth is that self-love is about valuing your existence as an independent and flawed human being.
Self-love is by far stronger than buying that too expensive pair of shoes you always wanted because you cherish and love yourself more than anything else. Self-love is different from the satisfaction you feel after taking a warm bath or pampering yourself with a massage or manicure after a hell of an exhausting and jagged day at work. Self-love is far too deeper than just some self-care activities, far too meaningful, loving yourself deeply and profoundly is more than just the things that we can do to ourselves.
To love yourself means being in peace with your inner self and living in harmony with your being.
It’s about being mindful of your own value and the impact you have on the rest of the world, it’s about understanding that you are enough, that you are capable of doing miracles and realizing how much your presence is important for the people around you.
It’s about forgiving yourself for the times you let yourself and others down, about letting the past goes and accept your past experiences as they are, as the small fragments that shape your actual life, without regrets or aversion to them, to come to terms with those aspects of yourself that you cannot change, it’s about identifying the different feelings that rise inside you and being able to put names to them without judges or shame, to be brutally honest with yourself in your sunny or stormy and tempestuous moments, to stop denying who you truly are and stop sugarcoating things and pretending that everything is rainbows, gumdrops, and unicorn shits.
Being able to acknowledge your humanity, your wrongdoing without internal hatred is the first step to love yourself properly, to stop running from the past without being stuck in it and to try to correct your mistakes without making them your identity.
You should feel worthy of your dreams, even when you have made huge mistakes, have hurt someone inadvertently, or played small all your life up until now, you should start loving yourself.
EMBRACING YOUR SHADOW :
Sadness, hurt, jealousy, unrequited love, anger, pessimism, laziness, mood swings and violence are a part of our humanity, it’s okay to feel this way sometimes and this won’t change who we really are or shape our life, it’s okay to feel pain and it’s not a sign of weakness. It’s about accepting the negative feelings and allowing a friendly space for them, it’s about giving them the space it takes and managing to control them so they won’t be overwhelming, it’s about having the courage to accept your darkest ways of thinking, rather than battling yourself, to embrace them and find an outlet to them without harming yourself or others, and then stepping in to change the things you want to change and the things you HAVE to change for your sake and for your own good and definitely not because someone else asked you to. You should have empathy and unconditional positive regard for whatever you are experiencing inside. It’s about understanding that our feelings are our allies not our enemies, about having the courage to take responsibility for our own acts, not through other sophisticating ways of numbing ourselves or transferring our pain to them through raging and blaming.
You should understand that it’s okay to be weak sometimes, that it’s not your fault that the world treats you harshly, it’s just the way life deals with everyone, it’s not fair but you have to deal with it the way it is.
You have to stop clinging too much to pleasant experiences; you have to rather trust yourself for being able to do well in the future and for being able to get through hardship and not to be afraid of what’s coming.
“Look to nature. Even the most beautiful, ancient forests are sometimes struck by lightning and burnt to the ground. At first glance, this seems like tragic, wasteful destruction. But it’s not. It’s all a part of the natural cycle of life. The fire destroys the forest; the ashes feed the soil; the soil provides a stronger, more nurturing environment; the forest grows back more radiant than before.”
Beneath the pain, darkness and destruction rests a quiet core of growth, love, and beauty.
WHY IS IT TOO HARD TO LOVE YOURSELF?
It’s so hard to love ourselves when we are taking life as nothing but a mere competition; we’re considering every other person as a threat and a rival that we have to beat. We have to be the best, the most beautiful, the smartest and the funniest. Life is no longer about enjoying our beautiful moments but a set of stressed moments filled with insecurities and self-sabotaging thoughts.
Today, it’s even harder to appreciate our beauty when there is a lot of fake and artificial beauty around… It’s hard to love ourselves for who we are because we are so haunted by the idea of having to be perfect for this world… The world has a tendency to view you as being far less intelligent, capable, good looking, charming, and ultimately, worthy of love than you actually are, it shows us those surreal “humans” and their faked perfect life and we quickly find ourselves comparing ourselves to them, trying to desperately measure up to their standards and running to date with all of the latest trends and it never ends well… we are obsessed with the idea of not being good enough for this world and since we are not that good in processing reality, we fall to the trap and it often costs us years of self-hatred and it takes us a long time to realize how unique and worthy we are.
You should keep in mind that not your weight, nor your eyes’ color, nor your nose nor your love handles can make you less beautiful than anyone else; that none of your self-esteem and self worth are tied up in the way you look, that your struggle doesn’t define you, neither your job and how much money you earn do.
HOW TO LOVE YOURSELF IS HOW YOU TEACH OTHERS TO LOVE YOU:
“Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have.”
We have to keep this in mind if we want people to respect us, loving ourselves is the only way to teach others how to love us, you have to understand that people’s opinion about you is independent from what your truth… You have to understand that not everybody will love you, that nobody really has to, that there will always people who won’t like you, people who will try to bring you down and people who won’t be able to see the good in your worst. This is why you should stop racking your head trying to understand why on earth this happens to you… It’s just that not everyone will bless you with their love and shower you with their praise and approval.
The moment you realize how worthy that person in the mirror is, you will no longer go along with people disrespecting you, disrespecting your choices, your beliefs and your boundaries.
People will only treat you the way you want to be treated by the moment you decide to put everything else behind and to make yourself a priority; by the moment you shut everything that disturbs your inner peace down and stop stressing yourself and taking the blame for others’ irresponsibility or cruelty; the moment you stop giving those toxic people the chance to step over you, to tell you what you can and can’t be, to feel comfortable with belittling your dreams or taking you for granted; the moment you decide that you are no longer allowing others to make you feel things you don’t want to feel, the moment you stop doing the things you are not comfortable with to satisfy others, the moment when you decide you no longer can be a second choice or an “in case” option.
Self-love teaches others how to treat you right, it makes you Indestructible.
Finally, I want to remind you that “you” is all that you have, that when you finally understand that your perfectly flawed self is all that you can blindly count on, the stress is gone; the depression, the anger and the hurt are no longer there, just the beautiful colors of peace and self-acceptance.
My advice for you is to invest in yourself, literally. To invest your time and energy and to actually go far in working on your personal growth and development and making yourself a better human being and a more equipped human to receive and give love every day.
Be reminded of this no matter how dark things might get. The key is always to love yourself a little bit more.
