You’re unaware of the fact that you don’t love yourself until it’s too late.
Every time you make a joke by beating yourself up. Every time you are sharing your presence with someone you know damn well is awful for you. Every single time you punish yourself for having the appetite of eating things you know are going to make you feel sick. Every time you say “I’m sorry” for something that isn’t your fault. Every time you put someone’s happiness a priority over your own because you genuinely feel they deserve it more. These things are true reflections of how you feel about yourself whether you admit it or not.
Self-Hate is a snake. It’s quiet and whispers to you, making you think it’s trying to protect you. But all it is trying to do is keep you safe in your self sabotaging circle of being small. Self-hate wants you to sit down, shut up, and stay fucking down.
After so many years of listening to that voice, you can’t even remember what it was like before you got so neurotically insecure. The actions that came from a lack of self-love finally catches up with you, and there some of us are completely confused about what it’s like to even tolerate ourselves. So you overthink and overthink until you have the plan of how to be finally perfect… Then you can finally love yourself and that’s when your life will begin. Life begins when you will one day get it right. And some people just don’t ever think they can even “get it right”.
What if you are already getting it right? Because you are you, and you are breathing. And you are doing the best that you can.
What if you just stopped listening to anything in your head that comes from a place of fear? The fear that you might be seen for who you are. The fear that someone will finally figure out who you really are, and that maybe they are as judgemental of you as you have been of yourself. What if you just assumed with every interaction in life that people were going to like you and if they didn’t, you just didn’t care too? Guess what, there are 100 more people that are out there who can love you for that 1 person who didn’t.
And it’s not like I am asking you to just say “I’m the best” and be so superficial about seeing yourself as perfect. No, I don’t want you to become an entitled egomaniac. That is self-hate too. That will keep you from growing and thriving. That will cause you to feel competitive. Then you back on the comparing train all over again.
To know how to take steps in truly and deeply loving yourself, imagine this: What would you do for someone that you loved deeply? Would you make time when they call on you? Would you take care of them when they are sick? Comfort them in their sadness? Would you take care of their mind, body and soul if you were called to?
Well then, you can do all of that for yourself.
Thank you so much to Christiana for allowing me to share her images.
