Self-Love

“When you picture unconditional, self-love in your head, what does that look like to you?” That was the question I needed to start with. And, it’s been a roller coaster of a ride ever since I looked into the mirror and first asked myself that question.

I’ve struggled so badly to genuinely love myself. There are many factors as to why learning to love myself was, and at times; still is, very challenging for me. I am choosing to share about my journey and the evolution of discovering what self-love actually was to 𝒎𝒆. Along with why that was so hard.

When I first began practicing self-care and self-love, I had many amazing people that had inspired me and given me ideas to practice. The suggestions were great. They were also extremely difficult for me to follow through with. Whenever I try to adopt other people’s ideas or practices, it doesn’t work. I’m a non-conformist through and through. If I cannot make something personal to me, I feel like a fraud. That could be a whole story of its own though.

I was stuck on the limiting belief that if I physically expressed love for myself—that meant I was being vain or narcissistic. Being raised by a narcissistic Mother left some serious scars. Love, trust, shame, guilt and fear were pretty much all lumped into the same category to me. They were all weapons as far as I was concerned.

So, there I was, standing in front of the mirror. I felt awkward, weird, guilty and shameful. I almost felt like I’d be punished if I looked into that mirror and spoke nicely to myself. For starters, at that point I wasn’t used to saying nice things to the person in the mirror. Then, add in the fact that I was my own worst enemy and forget it! I just could not do these type of things.

“Why was it so hard for me to do this?” It seemed as if I had been trying my entire life, to even like myself, let alone 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 myself. Yet, I seemed to be able to love everyone else the way I 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒅 to be loved in return. I beat myself up more and I felt broken. Throughout my life, even when I may have felt beautiful, I didn’t express it, I suppressed it. I had never really felt like I was 𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒅 to be or feel beautiful. It felt wrong or foreign to me. I also did not understand that beauty had nothing to do with loving myself or being of worth.

I constantly received insults throughout my childhood years. The famous last line that still triggers me to this day is “Oh, it’s only a joke. Calm down”. In response to a mean-spirited 𝒋𝒂𝒃 that was just a 𝒋𝒐𝒌𝒆, that statement is a rubbish scapegoat to justify hurting someone with a humiliating comment or insult. This was my perspective based on my personal experiences.

I was teased about my hair, my weight, my style, my non-girly, non-traditional behavior, my height and even my name. Not only did I hear some of these things from school mates, but I heard them from family. In fact, most of the subtle insults, mental abuse and back-handed compliments came from the people I loved the most, during my most influential years. If the very people that were supposed to make me feel loved, made me feel unworthy, how the hell was I supposed to love myself?

When you never feel good enough for anyone or anything and you never heard any sort of appraisal or kind word for a job well-done—it can really do a number on your self-esteem, self-image, and self-trust. My self-image was completely distorted with other people’s perceptions or expectations of me. Who I was, wasn’t who I was meant to be. I knew that. But, trusting that it was okay to be authentically and unapologetically 𝒎𝒆, was torturous at times.

In my early adult life, I dealt with some very disturbing and unique type of abuse in one of my past relationships. I will not go into detail (another story of its own). All I will say is that alone destroyed my identity, my trust in self, and my connection to my own intuition. I was so petrified of love, at large. I thought of it as a weapon because it had always been used against me.

Eventually, I found my thing. I started with the ten second test. This is when you look in the mirror, and stare into your own eyes, and into your soul—for ten whole seconds. In those seconds, if you can do this, and feel nothing other than peace and love, you’re said to be 𝒐𝒏𝒆 with your soul. I did this as many times as I had to, until I got to that place of peace and wholeness.

Once I had found a sense of peace within myself, I could then truly begin to learn how to love myself unconditionally. I did tons of shadow work, self-reflection and going within. I gained the courage to do things I’d never even imagined I was capable of. I could finally feel the love from myself that I had only been able to give to everyone else.

So, the other day while I was in my meditative bath I got an idea. As I was imagining what it’d be like to nurture myself as if I were my own lover, best friend, or even my own child. The image shared is what I came up with. It was a sacred, divine feminine moment with myself. It was raw, deep, loving and 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆.

Sharing this is a huge example of me facing my fears. I shared this story to let you know that you 𝒄𝒂𝒏 overcome anything if you desire it enough and work hard enough to achieve it. Also, to prove to myself that I am no longer terrified. I am not afraid of the “what if’s?”, the skeletons that try to haunt me, or the demons that threatened my peace and stole pieces of my power away. I allowed it to be stolen by living in shame and fear—but no more.

I now stand tall, fierce and firmly in my truth, strength and authenticity; with dignity, honor and courage. I finally love me! And, I don’t care who knows or sees. If I can say this and mean it, I promise you can, too. Self-love opens doors we never even knew were shut. Have the courage to learn how to truly love yourself, unconditionally. It’s worth it and so are you.