Monday, May 12, 2014

Self Love: A Journey

I've noticed a lot of down feelings among my friends recently. A lot of self hate, and yearning for love. I just wanted to share what my journey to self love and eventually romantic love looked like for me.

I had to think I was awesome before anyone would even acknowledge me. For all of my teenage life, I had terrible self esteem. I worried constantly about what others thought of me. I was desperate for love and attention. I thought that when no one fell in love with me, that there must have been something very wrong with me.

I convinced myself that I was ugly, didn't know how to act in public, that I had to hide who I was and how smart I was because then they would think I was a suck up. It was an awful way to live. I was a "hopeless romantic " and was convinced I needed prince charming and that he was out there for me. I fell in "love" with every guy that was ever kind to me and ended up in some really toxic relationships. I ended up in a three year relationship I didn't belong in because I didn't want to be alone.

My journey to self love started when I took a hard look at how I looked at myself. I think people see you often as how you see yourself, not all the time, but often.

I decided to stop letting people, things, and stereotypes define how I viewed myself. I picked three things (being a compassionate human being; being a strong, independent woman; and being a writer) and I told myself that I would never let anything else define me. That was step one of a hundred mile journey.

I started to undo the deep self-degrading psychology I had implanted in myself. I actively corrected my self hate and my over worrying about other people's judgments. I started pushing boundaries on what made me happy, alone and with other people. I complimented myself when I did something awesome. I started to pull away from social structures that were harmful to me. I started shrugging off more things instead of stewing over them. I started trusting people when they complimented or thanked me. I started being more kind to others inside my own mind. A critical mind attacks everyone, including itself. I gave people the benefit of the doubt. I spent time alone with my thoughts, away from technology and people.

Slowly I started seeing changes, I smiled more, I was more genuine, I didn't see the world through a filter, I wasn't desperate for attention ect. This is how I leaned to love WHO I was. My body love slowly started to filter in when I realized it didn't matter, that I would never be perfect, and that I loved myself.

I started seeing the good in my body: curve of a muscle here, softness there, the ability to lift things and to dance smoothly. I started appreciating it like I never had before.

During all this time I had started to not care if guys found me attractive but now, I was finding me attractive. This is when the attention started. I think because I didn't need the attention, boys wanted to give it to me. I had a kind of flippant attitude for a while, which still kinda lingers of "yeah, I know I'm awesome" and it made me feel great and made the boys go mad.

When I started actually dating people, it was because I believe in giving people shots and it was fun. I got asked out a lot and I had them take me to dinner, where I genuinely wanted to get to know them. When guys treated me like crap and still wanted my attention I told them to hit the road, and told them exactly why I didn't have time for that shit. It was in this kind of "me first" attitude that T started pursuing me.

I told him I didn't want anything serious right then and he told me that he was fine. He said he wouldn't push me, but that he wasn't seeing other people. I continued to see him and date other people. I was able to see in a clear way the difference between everyone else and him without being desperate for love and attention. I realized that he respected me as much as I did. When I saw that, I decided to give us a shot and the rest is history.

Self esteem is exactly that, about yourself and how you view you. You have to start loving you before you can get in a good place to love someone else and accept their love.

I hope everyone that hasn't gone on their journey of self love, has the courage to start. It's an amazing world out there. I would hate for anyone to miss out on it because they can't love themselves enough to enjoy it.

Love always,
Carly