How can I fall in love w/ myself?

1dietcokeinacan:

The first thing you have to do is stop trying to convince yourself you can’t. One of the biggest eye-openers for me was when I realized I almost didn’t WANT to be able to love myself – surely I am too complex, too fucked up, too intelligent to be able to just accept myself for who I am? The truth is that loving yourself is both the simplest and the most intricate process in the world. It is incredibly active – it’s a choice you make every day, every second. We live in a self-critical, consumer-fueled culture that literally shames us into thinking we are alone and inept. Really we’re neither! We don’t have to be, anyway. Loving yourself is an act of resistance. Remember that.

Second thing is you need to accept that most everything we see and interpret in the world is a reflection of ourselves, and vice versa. The impressions we get from those around us aren’t inherent truths about their feelings or about our nature – they are fears we indulge, ad nauseam, because we are comfortable believing that there is nothing we can do about our apparent inadequacy. This isn’t true. This is a toxic habit. When someone you know reacts negatively to something you have said or done, that is reflective of their own interiority, not yours. The subsequent berating you delightfully put yourself through is a mode of self-policing, of social control. But once you recognize that, it becomes easier to push against that voice in your head.

This is not to say that to love yourself you must absolve yourself of all wrongdoing. On the contrary, loving yourself is about understanding that our “faults” are as much a part of our wholeness as our “strengths,” and that those labels themselves are fairly arbitrary and ever-shifting. Because of this, you have to make a conscious effort to be aware of your context. Everyone is going through some version of this turmoil you feel, acting out in various ways because of it just like you. Take a slow breath. Try to be a little easier on them. And, most importantly, try to be a little easier on yourself.

Reconfigure your accomplishments not by the ways others validated you, but by the ways you were able to reach new parts of yourself. This isn’t easy – none of this is. A lot of the time I don’t abide by any of this. I get caught in the moment, in my old ways. But self-love means forgiving, too, for that. It means allowing yourself the room to make mistakes. It means, at the end of the day, speaking to yourself softly and sweetly and compassionately.

We are so fucking beautiful and layered, my love. Don’t deny your multitudes because there’s a part of you that doesn’t think you’re worthy of it. Treat yourself as you would someone you love deeply. With the same careful consideration, the same awe. Even if you don’t believe it yet – you will. You will.