As a woman, you hear the same mantra everyone you go: “Love yourself.”
I always hated that saying. Hearing some absolutely gorgeous girl saying, “Yes, I’m insecure, but I think I’m beautiful,” felt less like empowerment and more like another marketing tactic tied to some overpriced product. The beauty industry thrives off women questioning themselves, but that’s a conversation for another day. What always stuck with me, though, was this quiet assumption that I did like myself. Maybe on a really good day, I even loved myself.
But after my first Valentine’s Day, where I didn’t feel like a complete loser for being single, something shifted. I realized I had never actually loved myself, not in the way people talk about. That realization came rushing in all at once, like pins being pressed into moments of my past that I tried not to regret.
And that hardest part was recognizing how many of those moments could have been different if I had just valued myself more. The loser I stayed with for too long? I probably would’ve left them sooner. The even bigger loser after him? I wouldn’t have let things get as far as they did.
It was not about blaming myself. It was more like seeing, for the first time, how often I allowed people to treat me like I was disposable because deep down, that’s how I treated myself first. I didn’t like what I saw in the mirror . I hated how I sounded when I spoke, I was convinced that no matter what I did, I would never be enough for myself, so I believed anyone who acted like I wasn’t enough either.
The people who mistreated me? I accepted it because it matched the way I already spoke to myself.
Lately, though, something has been changing. Putting my wellness first, actually showing up to the gym with intention, actually standing on business when I say I don’t like the way someone treats me, has shifted my mindset in ways I didn’t expect.
I’m nowhere near fully confident. Some days I still walk into a room convinced everyone secretly dislikes me. But now, at least, I can recognize that thought for what it is: a habit I’m unlearning, not a truth about who I am.
And maybe that’s what loving yourself really looks like, not waking up one day magically confident, but choosing over and over again, to treat yourself with the same respect you’re finally learning to demand from everyone else.