Loving Oneself

« You should love yourself first before you can love somebody else » - you read any self help book, go into counselling, or just plainly have girl talk with your girlfriends and I am sure that these words, or something in the same variety, will be quoted.

It’s apparently a rule of life. Everybody knows it. Everybody quotes it. Everybody is aware of it.

But does everybody know how to actually do it? What does loving yourself mean, really? Does it mean staring at yourself in the mirror and stating “I love you, you wonderful, wonderful person”? Or do you go out publicly announcing “I am great and I love myself”? Well, these words can be the end result when you actually find the key to unlocking that self love in you. But before getting there, I found out that it is actually an arduous process.

Once you set out on your new road, start shedding your old skin and grow into the person you are meant to be, the world will look like a friendly place again. Smiles again appear, the twinkle in the eye returns, the laughter peals. It gives you a heightened sense of victory, of accomplishment.

In this case, it is easy to love yourself. You are manifesting the good in you. You again see the sun shining when you have believed that it has forever set. To hear your own genuine laughter after months and months of gloom is not just a gift; it is a miracle. It feels so good and so far from the bleak and murky sounds of your dark past that you feel that you have made it. The past seems over. The old you, gone.

Until the moment when you realize that she’s still there.

It can happen in an instant that you come face to face with the person that you loathed. You can be in a new relationship and find out that you’re still reacting the same way as before. You forge new acquaintances and you see old habits and pattern returning. You are faced with a situation and familiar emotions of anger, hurt and sadness re-appear. Then you realize that the past still looms. The old you is still ever present.

And then the turmoil within begins. Confusion bubbles up. Anger trembles your body. Your mind goes back to the questions that you thought you had already answered. Doubt enters.

And you hate yourself.

As I face this most recent episode where I am confronted by my old self again, I finally realized what loving myself means. It means that I have to be steadfast. I have to accept that I will always have that part of me that I do not particularly like. And if I am to have peace within myself, I will have to learn to grant myself the right to feel all types of emotions without any discrimination.

Loving yourself means learning to exist with your faults and your strengths. It means to be able to hold yourself lovingly in times of weakness. Again, it means not resisting whatever you are feeling but to allow it, without a judgmental eye.

From today on, let me embrace my mistakes as much as I do my triumphs. Let me receive my faults as much as my worth. I revel in the knowledge that there is still much to learn, much to know, and much growing up to do. I am uplifted by the thought that there is much room left to re-create myself. That my life will continue to be enriched by the people I meet, the experiences I encounter and the choices I make.

Let me remember that in my imperfection lies the opportunity of perfection. I allow myself to wobble. I allow myself to walk straight. By doing this, I allow myself to be loved.