Self-love. Something that everyone strives to reach, but little do people realize how arduous of a task it may be to reach this. I experienced this first hand. I believed that my life was at its pinnacle and that it was normal to not love yourself and constantly find flaws about yourself. I have always been guilty of putting others’ happiness before my own, and I knew this needed to change. It was not until a recent event in my life made me realize that I was existing, rather than living. I was ready to put myself forward and fall in love with myself.
I never felt as though I hated myself or that I was miserable, but rather I felt as though I needed to prioritize myself and my emotions. I thought to myself, How am I supposed to go about this? I know you all have seen the endless posts on Instagram about how important self-love is, but to me, it seemed so shallow and forced. I needed to find a way to genuinely fall in love with myself.
I did some research and came across dozens of articles that claimed to have the secret to loving yourself. Still, nothing spoke to me. Eventually I came across an article that gave a list of things that one could do to change their negative behavior and included tips on how to love yourself. I decided to give it a whirl. Many of the things in this article seemed to be very straight forward and obvious. However, after reflecting back, I realized that as obvious as these things were, I certainly was not sufficiently completing these tasks. For example, one of the tips was to acknowledge and celebrate your accomplishments. The way the article recommended doing so was to make a list of your accomplishments to truly see everything you have completed in the recent past. It occurred to me, I had done so much more than I gave myself credit for. I had gotten into graduate school a few months ago, and I diminished how big of an accomplishment that is! This was my next step, celebrating what I did for me, not for anyone else. Boy, did it feel great.
Once I had felt thoroughly proud of the tasks that I had completed, I wanted to keep going on this self-love journey. It had been a long time since I was happy for me, not just for someone else. I referred back to the article, and it recommended pursuing new interests. Given that we are all subjected to a life in quarantine, this seemed very appropriate. I decided to try several things: learning American Sign Language, baking bread, painting, and drawing. The critical aspect of these hobbies is that they all bring me joy. This joy was new because I always have fun with friends or at social events, but this taught me how to enjoy time on my own. I realized that over time I developed a sort of co-dependency on others for fun, but now I was beginning to see that I was enough to have fun. That does not mean that I am going to abandon socializing, of course, but it was a realization that it is possible to be happy and alone. I highly encourage others to pursue any hobby they wish because it certainly will teach you a lot.
Despite pursuing new hobbies and celebrating my accomplishments, I still did not fully love myself. I needed to change my mindset. I went through a period of self-reflection. Certain minor choices I was making in life resulted in an established negative mindset. I believed that I did not deserve the compliments people gave me, I consistently was able to find flaws about myself, and I was fed up with this. From that moment forward, when a negative thought crossed my mind, I simply would counter it with a positive entity. Additionally, I started to accept compliments rather than respond with “Oh no haha”. The last element that I feel truly helped me was that I began meditating regularly. I needed to enhance my mindfulness, and meditation immensely assisted with this process.
Honestly, these minor cognitive changes had catastrophic effects. I felt my mood beginning to be happier on a regular basis. I did not feel as though I needed to talk to anyone; I was content with me. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have bad days where I dwell on my insecurities, but I am sure to acknowledge these emotions and address them. Overall, I am much happier with who I am now, but I know that I still have a long road ahead of me on this journey. Remember that if you decide to embark on the journey of self-love (which I highly encourage) do not get discouraged and give up. Times will be tough and you may feel helpless, but you must persevere because you are a beautiful soul and worthy of love.
My mantra has been “The love I give to others, I also give to myself. I am worthy of divine love”.