Self-Love
Loving yourself is incredibly hard but also ridiculously easy.
Most of us think that "loving yourself" means that you are happy with yourself all the time. Somehow, we've bought into the idea that self-love requires a constant parade of daisies n your mind whenever you face up to yourself.
We confuse self-love with self-approval, too.
We think that unless we nod along to every weird thought our squirrel mind throws at us we do not love ourselves.
Basically, we have accepted that loving ourselves means being e helicopter parent to ourselves. Ever-approving, ever in denial, supportive until we scream.
That's not what love is.
That's also not what self-love is.
Self-love is like loving any other person.
It means we support ourselves emotionally just like we would our best friend when she's finally decided to call it quits with the abusive boyfriend. It means sitting with ourselves and handing ourselves the tissue, the blanket, and the Vodka.
It also means telling ourselves when we've wallowed enough and need to get dressed again. Self-love means readily getting into the oversized t-shirt and sweatpants but also swooping in with a shower and a smart outfit cause we can't stay in our PJs forever.
Sometimes, to self-love is like parenting a teenager.
Much like loving any other person, self-love is more a verb than a noun. It is not a feeling. It is something you do.
To self-love is something you practice. It is a skill and requires exercise.
Loving yourself can mean that you feed yourself with healthy food even when you were much meaner to your neighbour than was strictly necessary. It means that you try again day after day after day.
Self-love doesn't mean you will not feel bad about yourself. It means that you will not be bad to yourself even if you really, really disapprove of your thighs and the way you behaved at that party.
Self-love means you will not be mean to yourself. It means you will not bully yourself.
It doesn't mean you will not have unkind thoughts about yourself.
You probably have many unkind thoughts about the nosy lady in apartment 3B, but you don't go and do unkind things to her.
If you can understand that, you can understand how self-love works.
Self-love means that you don't act on your mean thoughts about the lady in apartment 3B even when you ARE the lady in apartment 3B.
