Loving myself: Progress!
When you come to the realization of how it truly feels to love yourself for the first time, you think of how amazing that is and to not take it for granted.
Defining love within oneself:
It was a long process for me to be fully comfortable in my own skin: loving myself for the first time. It wasn’t easy. It’s way harder than getting comfy in sweats or comfy clothes, laying on the couch, and watching movies on Netflix, possibly with a cuddle buddy: human or animal. Not everyone thinks at how hard it truly is to love yourself.
“Love yourself before you love others”
When your a kid, you may not really think about how important it is to be mentally healthy and to love yourself. For me, I can’t remember a time in my childhood where I felt that love for myself inside. Knowing that and everything I’ve been through with my mental health, I know not to take that for granted and to appreciate that love I have finally been able to feel inside and how healthy my brain is at the end of my recovery!
“Cuz if you like the way you look that much. Oh baby, you should go and love yourself. And if you think that I’m still holdin’ on to somethin’ you should go and love yourself.” – Justin Bieber
Testing, 1, 2, 3,
I scored a job working as a temp at Fraser Direct as of September till late April and most of those days that I worked there, I wore makeup. But then when I was more than 3 quarters through my recovery, I just thought about not wearing makeup and I noticed everyone at Fraser Direct treated me the same: no matter what I was wearing on my face (a mask or my true self). That is what true and natural beauty looks and feels like.
“My mama don’t like you and she like’s everyone. And I never like to admit that I was wrong” – Justin Bieber
What’s holding you back?
For years I suffered with acne starting in grade 8 and have always wore makeup to cover it up, but most importantly, hiding the real truest person underneath that mask. Some days I just hated the real reason why I was wearing that mask. It was to hide all those terrible pimples on my face that also held me back from loving myself too. So the few times throughout the years with acne, I felt a little something but never this much love for myself ever in all my life. But when I took that risk and leap of faith in taking that mask off my face and going to work just like I truly was all these years. I finally felt like I had moved past the things holding me back: judgements of what others would say.
“For all the times that you made me feel small. I fell in love now I fear nothin’ at all. I never felt so low when I was vulnerable. Was I a fool to let you break down my walls?” – Justin Bieber
“When you told me that you hated my friends. The only problem was with you and not them. And every time you told me my opinion was wrong. And tried to make me forget where I came from.” – Justin Bieber
What were some other methods with loving myself?
“I like myself the way I am” – Penelope
Penelope! When I watched Penelope for the first time, it made me think “if Penelope can go out in public looking the way she did and not let what others think, then what’s holding me back? And if she can, then so can I”. Right! So whenever I wanted to take some time to slowly work on feeling love within myself more, I would think back to important scenes of the movie and all the things that I learned from it.
Another method was thinking of a friend of mine: Tracey Bazso who suffered with mental illnesses like depression, self harm, attempted suicide 10 times and seizures. Knowing she went through mental health issues like these, I knew I could always count on her for help while I was depressed and throughout my recovery. And I told her that I was feeling love within myself and that feeling is more than I ever thought it would feel like. When I saw this post of her and her boyfriend, I really liked her caption about how her recovery lead her to loving herself then only leading to her boyfriend and loving him. Which they are both at that stage in their relationship! So cute, right?
Someday, I hope to find a guy like him. If your able to find her on Instagram, go through some of her pics and see how truly special and unique and more her relationship with. How their relationship is a great example of what “true love” really is in this century.
