What is love?
Love is what you feel when your dog comes running to the door when you walk into the house. Love is that feeling when your roommate brings home McDonald’s after a really long day. Love is that feeling when you snuggle up to your significant other while watching a horror movie.
It’s easy to think about love when it’s directed towards others. But what does it mean to love yourself?
Young women of this generation find it increasingly hard to love themselves. The magazines we read are filled with skinny girls with perfect hair and perfect skin. The clothes we want don’t fit the way we want, our hair doesn’t curl the way we want, and our makeup doesn’t look “flawless.” We are constantly trying to change something about ourselves to fit some corporate-constructed ideology of what it means to be pretty.
Our self-love is defined by our beauty. But there is so much more that affects the way we love ourselves.
When you read the magazine
Don’t try to be “her.” You don’t need to be 5’11 to be beautiful. You don’t need to have long, luscious hair to feel good or wear designer clothes all the time. You can shop at Winners and feel fabulous. You can chop your hair off and feel empowered. The women in the magazine are just 2-D pictures; you’re the real deal.
Love yourself.
When you are at the bar
Men and women of all shapes and sizes surround you. You felt pretty walking out of the house, but now that you’re around all these other people, you suddenly feel self-conscious. “My shirt doesn’t cover my stomach,” “She looks better in that dress than I do,” “He doesn’t look at me the same way he looks at her.” All these thoughts bombard your head. Stop looking around. Stop judging yourself. Those girls look happy because they aren’t worrying about the people around them. If you left the house feeling pretty, you keep feeling pretty all night no matter who is around you.
Love yourself.
When he moves on
He was the boy who made you feel pretty. He showered you with compliments and kisses and with him, loving yourself was easy. But now he’s gone. And so is the self-love. Now you begin doubting if he truly believed what he was saying. Your friends always reassure you that “You ARE beautiful,” that “He doesn’t deserve you,” and that “One day you’ll find someone who loves you for who you are.” But you find that hard to believe.
You thought he loved you for who you are. You thought he was deserving. Who’s to say the next guy who comes along and says the exact same things isn’t lying? But at the end of the day, he’s not sleeping in your bed…YOU are. You can’t define yourself by what others say about you. His compliments were sweet and kind, but you must be able to compliment yourself.
Look in the mirror. Look beyond the girl that HE sees and try to find the girl YOU see. Because you are beautiful. You are deserving of a man who sees you in that light no matter what happens between you.
Love yourself.
There’s so much around us today that can make us feel bad about ourselves, that can make us feel ugly or useless. But there’s so much more around us that can make us feel pretty.
Your family will always love you for who you are.
Your friends will always be there for you on your worst days.
But most importantly, you need to be there for yourself.
You need to love yourself.