Too often “nobody hates me as much as I hate me” seems to be the narrative. It really bums me out to hop online and see how many people out there think so poorly of themselves. Personally I’ve grown to believe the sun shines out of my own ass, and I’ve got to tell you, it’s truly a great feeling. I’m obviously no psychiatrist, I don’t have any professional psychology background that makes me any sort of credible source of enlightenment, but I’m a person who’s generally pretty happy so I’d like to share a system that works for me. Maybe it could work for you too.
I’d like to begin by stating that “self love” is so much more than the occasional bubble bath or $2 face mask from Target. Self love isn’t just taking yourself on shopping sprees every so often- it’s a lifestyle and it’s a full time job that requires acceptance, confidence, pride, and comfortability. Like any job, there are aspects that you’ll love and some that you’ll hate. Some days will be easier than others. The key here is perseverance; remind yourself every day that your soul will go hungry unless you get up and get that self-admiration bread. I’m not going to say that there aren’t some cloudy days, but significantly more often than not I wake up eager to greet myself for a new day of being me. What keeps my relationship with myself so strong? Acknowledgement, acceptance, and advancement.
Hey! Acknowledge your damn feelings! Check in with yourself. When your mood starts to go south, let it. Don’t immediately try to deflect them away. Don’t lie to yourself. Don’t dive right into distractions; take a moment to listen to what your brain is saying to you. Take some time to just feel. If you’re up to it, maybe even try to dissect your emotions a bit; where are they coming from? Sometimes the reasons are obvious- your partner just broke up with you and you feel like you’re not good enough, or you’re looking in the mirror dwelling on the 15 pounds you’ve gained in the last year (totally relate to that one, am I right ladies?). Other times they’re not so straightforward. Some days you just wake up in a funk and can’t seem to shake feelings of disesteem. The point of acknowledgment isn’t to find any underlying meanings or answers, it’s about introspection. What’s going on in your head?
Once you’ve tapped into your feelings, that’s where acceptance comes into play. You’d think this is something that just sort of happens. You feel your feelings so that means you’re accepting them, right? Not always, not even often. Feeling down about yourself is a slippery slope. You start out sad, mad, or insecure, and the burden of negativity begins to pile on as you feel even lower about feeling low in the first place. I feel like this is how most people build up a sense of self-hatred. They don’t accept their feelings-they make themselves feel stupid or hopeless for having emotions. Do your best to not open that door. Make a conscious choice to accept that you’re feeling upset and don’t allow any additional self-remorse. For instance, lately I’d describe my body type as sack-of-potatoes. Looking in the mirror or trying on clothes sometimes I start to feel really down. In the past I’d really let the self-pity get to me. I’d continuously dwell on the fact that I wasted so much time not going to the gym, and I kept eating fattening foods..I’d put myself down so much about letting it happen and not doing anything about it and I just kept spiraling. Nobody put it better than Fat Bastard: “I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat.” These days I’ve learned to just cut the pity party short. If I’m unhappy looking in the mirror, I take my moment to feel shitty like “damn, I should do something about that,” then I remind myself to end it with something like “but I haven’t committed to that yet and that’s ok. If it was that serious I’d prioritize it, I have other things going on.” Be kind to yourself! Welcome your wondrous human emotions with open arms. The first step to feeling better about something is feeling shitty about it, right? You can only go up from there. Accept that you’ve “let yourself go” a little bit because you’ve been busy. Your body might not look how you’d like it to, but you don’t have to let that extra weight weigh on you. Accept that your boyfriend broke up with you because he thought that another girl seemed cooler. That shit hurts, damn right! Can’t believe that happened, but it did. Sorry girl but you’ve got to accept it. Cry about it all you need to, but don’t continue blowing up his phone asking why you’re not good enough. Don’t let him fool you into thinking you’re undesirable either…things didn’t work between you two, bummer but if it was meant to be it would’ve been. Accept that you’re having an emotional breakdown at the end of a long work week and let it play out to its fullest potential. Bawl your eyes out, throw stuff, write depressing poems in your journal.. do the sad things. You are a human and you have emotions. Whether they seem to be “warranted” or not, they’ve gotten cozy in your brain and you might as well be hospitable. Pro Tip: Sometimes when I’m in a random depressed mood I like to make the sadness as dramatic as possible and sort of pretend I’m in a really sad movie- often times I’ll think up some kind of common movie reason to be sad (parent died, heartbreak, etc) so that I can “justify” the episode. It feels good to let it all out and in a lot of cases I end up kind of chuckling to myself for being that over-the-top. Don’t be afraid to let yourself FEEL.
Last but not least: advancement. MOVE ON! This is absolutely the hardest step. Even a self-love guru like myself still struggles here from time to time. Something upset you (or not, maybe it was just a depressive outburst), you felt like shit about it..now move on from it, let it go. There is no set time frame here, but the goal is to be tuned into yourself so that you’re able to differentiate between feeling the initial impact of the “thing” and lingering negativity towards yourself. When you feel like you’re coming down a bit from whatever the situation was, try to regroup and tell yourself something along the lines of “wow I was really feeling some type of way. That’s an experience for the books. Let’s maybe try to close that door and experience something positive now.” Easier said than done, I know..but it is possible. When it comes to things like insecurities, I know those are hard to shake. Moving on from things like that is nearly impossible, but just remember that you can control how much you let them consume you. Accept that you don’t like your nose and that it’s going to bother you from time to time and choose to progress from there, whatever that means for you. Maybe it’s finding a partner who really likes your nose, or maybe it’s lying to yourself about loving it hoping you’ll believe it some day. Point is, don’t let it consume you. Maybe you cheated on someone and you feel like a total piece of shit. You constantly tell yourself that you’re unworthy of love now. Don’t. Acknowledge you fucked up, accept that you feel shitty..patch up the hole and take it from there. Do better next time. Take that guilt and turn it into the motivation to be loving towards your next partner. A few shitty actions do not define you. Your big lumpy nose doesn’t define you. YOU define you. How you decide to move on from these things defines you.
To wrap things up, I think it really all comes down to being self-aware and more importantly KIND to yourself. Never feel stupid for having a bad day. Don’t dub yourself a piece of shit person when you’ve made a few mistakes. Don’t let your insecurities eat you alive. This process is easier for some than others. Some of us have louder, meaner voices in our heads. I know what it’s like to put myself down and just continue to do so after falling into a loop of being depressed about being depressed. I’ve made a promise to myself to constantly work hard so that doesn’t happen again. Learning to accept my feelings, dismiss them and forgive myself have been some of the most impactful skills I’ve learned thus far. As time goes on and you have more practice accepting yourself, eventually those negative thoughts get easier and easier to fluff off. I’m sure that this article was a crock of shit for some of you- if you didn’t just stop reading; but this is something that genuinely works for me. Even if you didn’t take much away from my words, my important message to you is: YOU have all the power in your world to change your mind about yourself. Don’t settle for being someone you hate. You can’t control every aspect of your life or even your personality- you can’t always control the way you respond to things.. but the cool thing is, that’s ok. It’s ok if you let it be ok. Choose to accept what you can’t control and choose to forgive yourself for the shitty things you’ve done. You’re you. You’re here, you’re there, you’re doing the damn thing and it’s all in YOUR head. You’re stuck yourself for this lifetime. Why wouldn’t you want to find a way to make you someone you like? Someone you love! Please, I urge anyone with ill feelings towards themselves to take the vow of a lifetime that is becoming friends with the person in their head. When that self-esteem truck starts to break down, remember you’ve always got AAA to come to the rescue. Acknowledgement, Acceptance, Advancement. (I’ve been waiting for like 3 paragraphs to type that closer.)
Start loving yourself today
-Anna
Advice Nobody Asked For 