I wonder how many of you struggle with self love. I wonder why we have to struggle with self love. For the longest time we have taught people to treat others how they would liked to be treated, yet so many of us do not treat ourselves how we want others to treat us. In general, the ones who struggle with self love tend to be very self critical, in an unfair way. We find it easy to accept and love people with flaws yet we cannot accept ourselves because we are flawed. Right at this moment my hypocritical, rational mind is unable to comprehend how one’s mind can work like that. However, the fact that I understand that it is reasonable to love myself is progress, is it not?
So how did this all start? The destructive path to self hatred and rejection began when we started placing our worth into the hands of society. We would only consider ourselves lovable when we see others love, compliment and respect us. Here, we fail to realise two things:
1) People come and go
2) Some people will bring us down because they themselves struggle with self love
In a world like this, can we really depend on others to value ourselves? Those of you who struggle with self love, I don’t blame you. Growing up we were always judged based on superficial qualities such as beauty, money, talent, popularity and the list goes on. If we don’t fit this perfect mould we get criticised or in some unfortunate cases, bullied. Sometimes we ourselves become our own bullies, because we adopted perfectionism as a key personality trait. Either way, directly or indirectly, we have been conditioned to please others and allow other people’s opinions define who we are. At the end of the day, we are social animals. We need love, we crave social acceptance and we want a circle we belong to. It is normal to measure our self worth with the opinions of others. Yet one’s presence in your life is never permanent. So this begs the question of how we can depend on ourselves to love ourselves?
The truth is, I am still figuring it out myself but there are few things that I have tried that have helped me love myself more. Before you read on, let me tell you the truth about the path to achieving self love, it is not straight. You will rise, fall and climb back up again. It is normal and inevitable, because at the end of the day, we are human and humans are flawed. So here are the tips I have for you:
1) Understand that you are human and humans are flawed
The sooner we set realistic standards for ourselves, the easier it will be to achieve self love.
2) Make a list of all the positive qualities you have
No one is perfectly good or awfully bad, we are all a mix of good and bad qualities. Now that you have acknowledged your short comings, remind yourself of all the positive attributes you have.
3) If you struggle with the above, find evidence
Reminding yourself of what you have achieved and the good you have done for others will help reinforce the notion that you are valuable.
4) Be kind
If you struggle with the feeling of unworthiness then do something worthwhile. Be kind. As silly as it sounds, be kind. You cannot change one’s life with your appearance or possessions but you can make an impact on someone with your kindness. Trust me, there are good people out there who would love and appreciate you for your kindness. Kindness is a special quality believe it or not. It is one of the very few qualities that has the power to light up someone’s world. Being kind can also help you form some strong bonds.
5) If in doubt, prove yourself wrong
If you are doubting yourself, prove yourself wrong. If you think that you are incapable of doing something, learn how to do it and practice doing it till you get better at it. Practice does make perfect I promise.
6) Accept that everyone has different tastes
Just because someone does not like, accept or respect you, it does not mean that you are undesirable. Do you and everyone in your life have the same ideal type? No right? So what makes you think that everyone else would have the same preferences? What makes you think that everyone shares the same opinions? Some will like you, some will love you and some would not care about you. It is a part of life, move on. If I was to be honest, you would start to choose people who appreciate you once you start to appreciate yourself, remember that.
7) Remember all the people that have shown you love all this time
Be it a friend, family member or a lover. There is someone out there that has been there with us and loved us unconditionally all this time. No idiot would love us this much without a reason. They see something special in us. For them, we are imperfectly perfect. We only have this person in our lives because we are valuable, special, unique and most importantly lovable.
So that is all my friends, I feel much better after writing this. I hope I have helped atleast one person. I want to finish off by saying that you are not alone, I am in this with you too. It will take time and it is a wonky path but one day we will get there and look back with a smile on our faces, I promise.
See you all next week!
Love,
Akshi