Someone once told me that the day I fell in love with myself would be the day everything began to fall into place, but self-love isn’t easy. It’s a never-ending battle between yourself and…well yourself. We all struggle with it because we grow up comparing ourselves to others—our bodies, our intelligence and our talents.
Some days you look in the mirror and hate what you see. I know I do. We face the mirror and only see our faults and our insecurities, and sometimes it’s too hard to even look at what stares back. And that’s okay. It’s okay to have bad days because they’re normal. Self-love isn’t just about believing your beautiful; self-love is understanding that you’re human and worthy of love. It is believing you have value and deserve to be treated with respect. It is seeing your faults and knowing those are just small pieces of you that make up who you are and influence who you will become.
As young girls, we quickly learn society’s beauty standard. We play with Barbies, we see the girls on TV, and we look at the models in magazines. In our teenage years, we begin to play around with makeup. We start dressing differently. For the first time ever, we even start dieting to fit into these expectations of beauty that aren’t natural. We slowly try forcing ourselves to become what doesn’t exist. We try to be perfect.
Perfect. That is a word that has haunted me forever. So many of us strive to be amazing while failing to realize we already are. We are enough. No magazine, no social media page and certainly no person has the right to say you aren’t enough.
Perfect doesn’t exist, and even if it did, perfect is boring. Why would I choose to be boring? Why should you choose to blend in?
The answer is simple. You shouldn’t choose to blend in because you have a unique purpose. You are who you are today because of every choice and event that has happened in your life. You have to make a choice to continue to grow into who you were born to become, or to blend in and lead a life that wasn’t made for you.
Self-love is hard and it can be brutal at times, but you are strong. Because it’s an uphill battle, here are some everyday tips for your journey to self-love: identify one thing you love about yourself a day, write down five things you’re grateful for each morning, prioritize self-care, and live every single day like it’s your last.
Lastly, never ever forget that although you may not love who you are right now, there is always someone who loves you. It’s a struggle to see yourself the way others do, but when you finally do, I promise it will be the greatest love story of your life.