Self Love
My definition of self-love has changed over time. In my early twenties, self-love was only a concept, and I thought it meant you loved yourself and accepted yourself. However, in the last few years, I really have gone within to find a deeper meaning and a better understanding.
Self-love now means that you accept yourself the way you are, forgive yourself for mistakes you may have made, and understand that some things happen one way or another to help us grow and evolve. Once you love yourself and accept yourself for who you are, you begin to value your self-worth and will not tolerate anything that compromises the standards you have set for yourself.
For example, If you have low self-love, it can also correlate with low self-esteem. This can be due to appearance, health, social and economic standard, trauma etc. The dangerous part of having low self-love is you will begin to accept things and people in your life that, instead of enhancing it, take away from your peace, time, environment, and self-esteem. For example, this can be a toxic partner, a zero work/life balance occupation, or a friend or family member. It usually seems like it's no big deal, but over time, it messes with our mindset. I used to work around like a zombie over giving until I was left dry because I lacked boundaries and self-love. I can trace it back to being an overachiever as a kid and constantly feeling guilty if I didn't overextend myself. We can also add that somewhere in my early twenties, my mindset drastically changed due to the trauma response of fight or flight mode, and I really believed that I was "damaged goods" and "it is what it is" so I started accepting low vibrational people in my life, partners and put myself in less than desirable situations that compromised my beliefs. The reality of it is I had very little self-love.
I couldn't see what other people saw in me because I had to heal and alter my own self-beliefs about my appearance and image, forgive myself for my past decisions, and set myself free from limiting beliefs. It is something to this day I still working on. I am in a healthy relationship, have a supportive network of friends and mentors, and support family and what is considered a real adult job. I am also navigating going back to school for my BA and started this platform along with my brand to at least help one other person who struggles with self-love and their identity.
Some of the things I do constant daily reminders of words of wisdom, one of my love languages is words of affirmation, so I have post-it notes with my favorite quotes, I listen to empowering music, I dance whenever my anxiety is trying to get the best of me, and I listen to a motivational podcast and read alot of self-help books. I am actively working on becoming a better, more mature version of myself and in doing so, holding myself accountable to my self-love ideology. You can find some of these resources in my previous blog post.
The bottom line is you are not alone. We all struggle with this! And the world could be a kinder place, but first, we must take action to be kinder to ourselves. It all starts from within.
