I recently watched relationship author and television writer Tracy McMillan’s TEDxOlympicBlvdWomen talk, where she brings up this idea that the relationship you have with yourself is more important than any bond you’ll make with another person.
In other words, the only person you need to marry, is yourself.
When you choose to marry someone else, you’re making a commitment to loving that person. The only difference between marrying the love of your life and yourself is that you cannot divorce yourself if things don’t turn out how you expected them to be.
You can’t back out on yourself. How self-deprecating must that feel — to say that you gave up on yourself? There’s no end to that. When you’re in a relationship with another person and things just aren’t working out, it ends, and you move on to the next person. You can’t do that with you.
Marrying yourself is a commitment to loving yourself, and accepting every fiber of your being. When you love yourself you don’t overly obsess about every imperfection you see staring back at you in the mirror; instead, you see them for what they are, and love yourself anyways. You don’t have to be anyone, do anything, or prove yourself to anyone, because you are perfect just the way you are. You are perfect because you are imperfect.
So often people fall in love not with another person, but with the fantasized version of who that person will become. That’s not true love. Love is accepting someone for exactly who they are without ever expecting more out of them.
But isn’t that a formula to stay stuck where you are, or just another excuse to not change yourself? With all the body positivity and fat shaming circulating around in the culture these days, it might seem that way, but that’s not what self-love is. It’s quite the opposite really.
Loving yourself doesn’t excuse you from anything, it gives you permission to become a better, stronger, and more beautiful version of yourself (not that you weren’t already). Not only that, when you learn to accept the not-so-great parts about yourself, you begin to understand and accept other people’s mistakes and slip-ups in a more forgiving manner, you start to see them in the same light that you see yourself in, and most importantly, you realize that we’re all just the same: flawed humans.
In a way, we’re all just like rocks. Yup, rocks.
Every rock is unique and special in its own way. They all have their imperfections: tiny little ridges, colored spots, pointy edges, rough patches…etc. But those imperfections, are what make that rock, that rock.
You are perfect because you are imperfect.
Maybe you’ve been to the beach before, maybe you’ve seen your handle of rocks skipping them, or maybe you’ve just seen one on the Internet. Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure you don’t “judge” the rock. Of course not, that would be silly, the rock just is. We don’t rank rocks on a scale of how pretty, hot, sexy, or how luxurious a rock’s life must be but we compare ourselves everyday on Facebook and Instagram. Can’t we all just be rocks for a hot second? Can you imagine what it’d be like if rocks had an ego like us? They’d fall into the trap of beauty standards and all of them would put on this exterior facade that paints their shell as the perfect smooth and silky rock. In the rock world, that would be considered “beautiful.” But to us? All rocks would look the same.
The point is, you, just like a rock, have imperfections, and that’s okay. You are you because of it.
When you love yourself, you don’t need anybody to love you back, because you already have yourself. “Love yourself more than anyone in your life, because if you don’t, then who will?”
Answer: nobody.
“And what the hell is the alternative?”
Answer: living in a constant state of divorce with yourself.
If you haven’t come to terms with the idea of marrying yourself, then logically, you’ve divorced yourself. You’ve separated yourself from loving.
How to Start Loving Yourself
This is a very personal story of mine in my journey to accepting and loving myself. This is what worked for me, so maybe you can find some value in it too. At the time, I was confronting my social anxiety that had a huge grip on my life. I used a technique called EFT, which I won’t go into detail on, but it has been massively transformative into changing how I see myself and my self image. Every session begins with a setup phrase that goes something like this:
“Even though I have social anxiety, I deeply and completely accept myself.”
And then I would proceed with the normal procedures for the session, and end it with positive self-talk. I literally say it out loud, for example:
“I deeply and completely accept myself for exactly who I am. I don’t have to be anyone, do anything, or prove anything to anybody. I am perfect just the way I am. You are awesome. I love you.”
And I would say that, or variations of it, over and over and over again, probably for longer than I should. I did these in the shower, and if I’d have to guess, sometimes I’d be in there for 20–25 minutes. Yeah, I lose track of time when I’m in there, but honestly, positive self-talk feels good when you do it.
When was the last time you said “I love you” to yourself? Or anybody? We just don’t do that.
Love you ❤
Thanks for reading! 🙂
