Self-love is defined as “regard for one’s own well-being and happiness (chiefly considered as desirable rather than a narcissistic character)” by dictionary.com.
Self-love is a long Odyssey that I have struggled to begin — and, even now, I have trouble loving myself some days. But the first step to accepting yourself is to acknowledge the progress.
My story has no beginning. Ever since I could feel and form opinions I have had problems with self-confidence and “putting myself out there.” I’m sure many people can relate to this feeling of having two different personalities: one extroverted with the people you love, and one shy introverted personality that the majority of the world sees. I am here to tell you that it’s not just in your head, take me as a living example of that phenomenon. If you watch home videos of me, you’d see that in every single one of them I am dancing and singing, and I always had to be the center of attention no matter what the scenario was. I’d make my parents record me reading when I barely knew how to read, I would memorize the story front to back and read from my memory. I would make up songs and dance on sofas and on coffee tables. This personality was one extreme, but everything would change when I would be at a family friends’ party and I was asked to socialize — I just couldn’t. I wanted to be next to my parents while everyone my age played in the basement. I just couldn’t imagine the idea of socializing. I realized that it was just a complex I had, and it is still a work in progress.
It took me a long time to step out of that complex of not being good enough. I am still struggling to understand my self-worth but, as I said before, I have made a lot of progress. The experiences in my life have changed me for the better.
The other thing I like to talk about in my self-love journey is the relationship I have with my body. For as long as I can remember, I have loved food. If you put any kind of sweet, pasta, or any food in general in front of me, I will go crazy because I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to food. On top of this, I have not been blessed with a fast metabolism. So, put these two things together and you have my body.
As I grew older and started exposing myself to social media, I quickly learned what people defined as the “ideal body type,” and that added to my insecurities. I try not to let the “ideal body image” become my standard because I am aware that everybody is different and everyone doesn’t have the same body type. And, although I am aware of this, my mind still manages to convince me otherwise.
Like everyone else, I have those days when I feel super happy with my body and other days when I am just not feeling it. I am here to tell you — as you have heard a million times — that it is completely normal to feel this way. My eventual goal is to love my body and enjoy working out for the right reasons. It’s not because I have to exercise, it’s because I want to. I want to be able to work out and eat right for myself, and not because I want to lose weight.
My advice to anyone who is starting their self-love journey is to start with a bullet journal, and record your goals every month. It can be anything — if you want to learn a new skill, then let that be your goal. Once you have done this, start creating a routine to help you achieve those goals and, once you have achieved some progress, it will make the biggest difference in the world, I swear you. I can personally attest to this technique and it has helped me a lot to boost my confidence and embrace my personality.
Self-love is a long journey and I am happy to share my story in hopes that it may help someone else. It isn’t about being happy all the time because we all know that it’s ridiculous. I believe that self-love is more of a realization; that although some days we may feel horrible about ourselves, we realize at the end that we are perfect just the way we are. Our flaws are our greatest assets and it’s up to us to embrace ourselves.