Self love is not linear
We all support the idea that the best thing we can do is to love ourselves. We often preach about self-love on social media, throwing out inspirational quotes and share visuals with our followers. We give our friends advice on how to take better care of themselves and often get mad if we see them slacking.
I feel like we all know what self-love means roughly, something like ‘having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness’. Yet understanding the concept is very far from actually making it a part of our daily lives. I know that life would miraculously get better if I could just ‘love myself’ or have a higher regard for my ‘wellbeing‘, yet I feel like although those words make sense, I always found it very hard to conceptualise it in a concrete way.
I always thought I knew how to practice ‘self-love‘. I thought it was simply doing a face mask, going shopping or taking some time for myself to be lazy. Yet when I read my diary entries from just a couple of months ago, they actually make me feel quite upset. I see how hopeless, aimless, depressed and mean I sound. Yes, mean. Have you ever caught yourself being mean inwardly? Saying words you’d never say out loud, using adjectives that you’d normally frown upon? I now see that I was being so hard on myself, treating myself both mentally and physically in a way I would never ever treat someone I love. It’s at times like that that I am my most uninspired self, sometimes not writing down a single word with the fear of immortalizing the mean thoughts and inviting in the demons to stay.
Self-love, I have now discovered, isn’t just actions like forcing yourself to do a face mask with the faint hope that it will make you feel better, it is actually letting yourself be and also calling yourself out on all of your own toxic behaviour.
I have realised in the last couple of months that, for me:
Self-love is taking myself to therapy.
Self-love is preparing myself a nutritious meal.
Self-love is going to bed full.
Self-love is not comparing myself to others.
Self-love is making to-do lists for myself.
Self-love is being able to leave situations that no longer serve me.
Self-love is exercising, not to burn calories but to celebrate my body.
Self-love is being patient with myself.
Self-love, sometimes, is cancelling plans.
Self-love is being able to say no to things that don’t spark joy.
Self-love is not constantly thinking you’re failing but actually believing in yourself for once.
Months later, when I feel like I’m slowly getting to a good place and on a good path overall, I still catch myself thinking of worst-case scenarios and what could go wrong. I still sometimes don’t love myself enough, I still worry, I still have occasional flings with the demons. Yet I also know that that kind of mindset only brings worse days. Focusing on the negative takes the focus away from all the positivity going on. If you focus on the rain you’ll miss the rainbow.