Learning to love oneself is a confronting path. For a lot of us, we’ve been given many reasons to not love ourselves, and yet it is a necessary thing to be able to have self-confidence. To fully live and love others, I think we need to learn to love ourself.
I have learned to love a lot of things about myself, and a lot of my strengths and traits. But what I’ve recently discovered is that I don’t love myself unconditionally – I love certain parts of myself, and I love myself when I am meeting my own expectations.
When I don’t meet my own expectations, my self-talk is brutal.
Recently, I learnt another approach to learning to love oneself. Instead, it is unlearning the fear and blame that we place on ourselves. It is unlearning the fear that causes the brutal self-talk. It is the fear of shame, and the fear of judgment from others, and the fear of failure. I need to somehow unlearn this fear.
“A massive and essential part of self-love is forgiveness and acceptance. So while you’re making an effort and striving to be the best person you can be, at the same time you need to recognise your own humanity. Try to not hold yourself to impeccable standards, and just do the best you can right now.” – Gala Darling
So learning to love oneself is not so much about learning to love ourselves!! Instead, it is about unlearning all of the patterns and perspectives of fear that have kept us disconnected from the love that is already within us.
Part of it is allowing. Allowing myself to feel that I am love. I don’t need to create love or find love. It is already within. All I need to do is clear out everything that is blocking my connection with my love.
If you truly love and accept yourself, how would you treat yourself?
If you truly and deeply love yourself, what life changes would you feel empowered to make?
