Earlier in September, Gabrielle and I co-wrote an article about looking for validation from other people (boys especially) and I closed it by saying that it’s more important to make sure you love yourself than it is to make sure other people love you. The day it came out, somebody sent me a Facebook message saying they liked the sentiment, but wished I had elaborated a little bit more on how to love yourself better.
I wish I was just the person to be able to write some perfect step-by-step that’d change your life and finally help you realize just how incredible and lovable and talented and good enough you really are. (You are all those things, you know.) But the thing is, I’m not really sure there’s a formula to it, or a trick, or some kind of routine that helps things snap into perspective. Or if there is, I haven’t found it yet. But I’ve found a couple things that work for me pretty well.
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Communicate It
Sometimes it feels burdensome to talk to people about the way you’re feeling, especially when it’s about your own struggle with self-love. It’s so important though not to keep any of the negative feelings bottled up. They can be corrosive that way and will eat away at you. It’s really crucial to have at least one person you trust and feel like you can talk to—be that a friend, a family member, or a counselor or therapist (I for one am all for the idea that everyone should go to a therapist at least every once in awhile). If nothing else, or even in addition to being able to talk to someone, I think having a journal is an incredible investment. It’s amazing to get to have somewhere to document your thoughts and something to look back on to see how far you’ve come.
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Fall in Love With Everything
I strongly believe in strongly believing. Standing up for or supporting something you identify with is such a huge part of self-actualization. Everyone has a passion for something, and a lot of the time that passion really can shape a lot of someone’s character. That aside, though, nobody is uni-faceted, and I definitely am in major support of loving as many things as humanly possible. I wrote another article a bit ago about appreciated littler things in life and noticing how much good is all around you, and I really do believe that having a positive outlook on the world around you works wonders for creating a positive outlook on yourself.
Spend Time with Yourself
It’s impossible to really get to know who you are as an individual if you don’t ever spend some one-on-one time in your own head. It’s so important to make time to do something on your own for a little bit every once in awhile. I know a lot of people’s self-dates usually involve curling up and watching Netflix, and believe me, I love those nights as much as the next person, but at least sometimes I strongly encourage closing the laptop screen and doing something else you like. Put in headphones and take a walk outside, or find a blanket and a cup of something warm and catch up on that unrequired reading you started a few weeks ago and then got too busy to finish. Appreciate the stillness, and the quiet, and let yourself regroup and reflect on anything that’s happened in the past few days. Check in with yourself, and be honest. How are you feeling? What’s causing that feeling? How do you either keep feeling that good or get yourself out of feeling not-so-good? (But be careful not to psych yourself out. Breathe deep, even if you aren’t feeling great that day, and stay as calm as you can in the moment. Things will be okay.)
But Also Find the Right Circle
Somebody asked me a little bit ago if I thought humans could be truly self-reliant, if self-loving meant we really didn’t need anybody at all besides our own selves. My answer to that is no—not at all. It’s so, so, so important to surround yourself with people who you love and who love you. They’re who you’re going to lean on in everything, and what’s cool is that you’ll be able to be someone for them to lean on too when they need it. Loving other people is I think the most powerful thing we can do in life. And when other people love us in the right ways, it’s easier to see the reasons to love ourselves. The people in your life should be there to celebrate you and lift you up, to stay in your corner always, and to be your champions no matter what.
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Relapse is Not Failure
Some days are gonna be kind of hard. Other days are gonna be really hard. That’s so okay. It doesn’t mean that you’re not making progress when you have days when it’s hard to see any good in yourself. Ride out the storm, and once it’s over, take a quick nap and then reassess. Remember that everyone has days like that.
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Practice Forgiveness
Every day. I think this is the most important one. Forgive others when they do something to hurt you, and when you do something to hurt others or that may hurt yourself. Apologize to whomever you have to, forgive yourself, and progress from it. Grudges are dangerous and can never be productive. Not to mention it’s so much simpler to be able to let things go when they’re weighing you down.
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Appreciate the Journey
Things can’t really get better overnight, as nice as that would be. Deciding to love yourself isn’t so much a one-time decision that resolves everything—it’s a choice you need to actively make every single day, for a while at least until it starts to feel more like second nature. The steps will be small, especially at first, but they’re still steps. Don’t stop moving. Know that everyone you’ve ever looked up to had to take a similar road to the one you’re on right now; everyone does.
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Life has never been a cakewalk for everyone in the history of the world ever. And that’s okay. It’s beautiful anyway. You’re going to end up a little bit bruised, a little bit scraped up, and a little bit hurt as you go through life, just by life’s nature. And that’s okay. You’re beautiful anyway.
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Image Credit: Annmarie Morrison