I was always told that before you get into a relationship of any sort, you must love yourself. Looking back, there are only a handful of times in my life where I can say I truly loved my life and who I was. Sadly, a lot of those times were many years ago. I have always struggled with loving myself, like a lot of people do. I pick out my imperfections and flaws so easily every day. I rethink things I have said or done at the end of each day and cringe at the thought of myself.
My self-love journey did not begin before I fell in love, but as I fell in love. Almost two years ago, I met a wonderful guy on campus who is now my absolute best friend and partner in life. At the beginning of our relationship, I struggled with believing his compliments. I did not see myself as the person he described me to be. He would always randomly compliment me when I was doing things and would pick out things I said or did that he liked. It always made me feel good in the moment, but that feeling was always short-lived.
I remember one night, when our relationship began to get serious, I cried alone in my dorm room on a Friday night because I thought about all the pretty girls on campus and how I would never look that good or do things as flawlessly. I feared that I was not enough for this new guy in my life who was an absolute dream. I woke up the next morning with a slightly different mindset on myself and decided to maybe, for once, accept a compliment and believe it a little.
As I started doing that, I slowly began to believe what he said about me. Maybe I was kind, pretty, and funny. Maybe I was a hard-working person who cares for others. Even if I did not fully believe these things, there was a slight feeling of hope and self-love and that’s all that mattered to me. It was the most love that I have ever given myself. I never thought of myself in this positive way, but the way it made me feel was indescribable. It made me feel powerful and confident in myself.
I continued this mindset for a while until I got to the point where I did not just believe these things about myself; I knew they were true. I knew that I was kind, pretty, and funny. I knew that I was a damn good student and that I busted my butt at work. I knew that I was exactly who I wanted to be. To this day, I still know these things about myself. My boyfriend helped me see who I really am by doing such small things without even knowing. He did not notice that after calling me pretty 100 times and me never believing him, I finally did after 101 times. He helped me realize that I can not see the beautiful person I am by just looking in the mirror. I cannot see how my smile lights up when I laugh at jokes or see how pretty my eyes are when looking at the sunset.
I never thought about how I looked and acted when I was not actively looking at myself until these things were pointed out by him as he got to see them. I began looking more at the things I liked about myself instead of pointing out the negatives. Changing my mindset and finally believing in who I am helped me realize that I love myself. I struggle to find self-love some days for sure, but I love the person I see when I look in the mirror. I love how kind and outgoing I am. I simply love me, and I can happily say falling in love helped me love myself. All I needed was an outside perspective and a mindset change to see the beautiful person I truly am.