Loving yourself is not as easy as people make it out to be. It is a rollercoaster. You think loving someone else is difficult, try truly loving yourself. I am not saying this in the way that means that you just tell yourself you love yourself. I mean TRULY loving yourself.
In my faith, I believe that I am loved by God and he loves me as I am so there shouldn’t be a reason why I don’t love myself. I had to find a way to understand that I am perfectly imperfect and that was ok. What I have come to understand about loving myself is that first I had to accept myself. I had to accept my flaws. I had to accept my shortcomings. But one thing I didn’t realize I wasn’t accepting of is that I am/was/will be good enough for good things to happen in life. Let’s break this down a little bit to make sure I am being understood.
First, I had to accept your flaws. If I didn’t accept my flaws, then I would have thought I was perfect and trust me when I say I am far from perfect. By accepting and understanding my flaws, I have become more self-aware of what I needed to work on. I have been able to find people that are able to help me compensate, learn and add to improve on those flaws.
In the process of learning my flaws, I have also been able to learn where my strengths are. One of the strengths that I have is with work. I have been able to learn to have a great work ethic and when I work, I give 100%. This has carried with me for years and it shows. I have learned to toot my own horn whenever I can because it helps build confidence. I do it secretly sometimes because I don’t want to be perceived as being arrogant. I know I am good once I am trained at a job, so I don’t hesitate to learn and try to understand as much as possible.
Once I identified my strengths and weaknesses, I became more aware of me. I started to assemble the puzzle titled “Me” in order to try my best to find all the pieces to complete it. Let me tell you a secret though. I figured out that I will never have all the pieces. Some of the pieces to this puzzle don’t fit perfectly with other pieces. I have learned to mold the pieces to conform to some of the ones that are there. What does that mean?
That means no part of me is perfect and I have to adapt myself. I cannot always do all the things I want to because it is not for me. That is like being a size 16 pants and trying to squeeze into a size 4. That is not going to happen without a lot of work, molding and determination. I have needed others to come in and help me, like a trainer, mentor, a coach. Someone that knew more than me in order to help. And guess what else. . . . . (many don’t like to hear this part). I HAD TO BE OPEN, OBJECTIVE AND WILLING TO RECEIVE THE VALUABLE INFORMATION I WAS ABOUT TO BE GIVEN IF I WANTED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN MYSELF.
It was like an out of body experience because I had to analyze myself how a person analyzes another when they meet for the first time. It was meeting me for the first time in a long time. I lost myself over the years and had to find a way to find the person I knew was there. I had a son and my whole world changed. I became a mom and partially forgot who I was as a person, as myself. When I finally began to become self-aware, I started learning about the things I liked and disliked. I was able to analyze the things I will accept in my life as well as the things I won’t accept in my life. I had to learn this in order to find out what makes me happy.
This is not a one-time thing, this thing to analyze yourself and figure out likes and dislikes. This is an ongoing process. I have to study constantly; pay attention to the signs I get from people and learn to follow my intuition. I had to learn to trust myself. I am still learning to be more trustworthy of others as well. I know most people I have met have trust issues, but you can find people to trust. Trust me. Lol.
To me, loving yourself means that you are willing to continue to grow as a person. You are self-aware. You have found the secret to actually being happy. Loving yourself also means being happy with who you are. You should be your own happiness and bring yourself peace. If you decide to add someone else to your life, they should add to your happiness but should not be the center of it – we will save that for another blog post.
People work on themselves in different ways. Some people from the outside in, while others work on themselves from the inside out. To each their own right? As long as you are working on you, no one can be mad at you. I will give a quick disclaimer on this process; some people may not survive your process. This is not always a bad thing. Remember my post about toxic people, well those toxic people you don’t get rid of on your own will leave your side once you start growing. They will not fit the person you are becoming and that is ok. Never think this rollercoaster ride is over. This is a lifelong process. I will leave you with this:
”People are like stained glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if their is light from within” - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
L.D.A.