Self-Love: The Truths No One Talks About

"Work out! Try this diet! Start taking collagen! Only warm water in the morning!"

We all hear about different ways to love ourselves and improve our health. Because it’s not something easily taught, this can be one of the hardest things we have to learn throughout our lives.  essence of loving ourselves. We live in a world that is fixated on having us try the newest thing because it promises a different physical being.

The truth about self-love is that it isn’t physical at all, it's internal. Self love begins with gratitude and affirmation. 

Gratitude means appreciating the goodness in our lives and emphasizing thankfulness. Affirmation means emphasizing a positive mental attitude by naming a positive present statement about yourself.

 It is so easy to wake up in the morning and pick ourselves apart, but when we get told to try to say nice things about ourselves it suddenly seems impossible. I am not sure when we as a society collectively decided that judging ourselves so critically is normal. The normalization should be speaking to ourselves in the same ways to speak to our loved ones.

You would never walk up to a loved one and say things like "you look ugly today" or "I absolutely hate the way your body looks." Yet many of us say these things to ourselves without a second thought. Loving ourselves is difficult because we are constantly taught to measure our worth against impossible standards. 

We have been taught who we should be or what we should look like. Comparison culture is real and it quietly teaches us that our value stems from how we look, what we do, or how closely we fit the box. This means that over time these messages have nowhere to live besides internally. We begin to swallow them as motivation rather than spit them out because they are harmful. It becomes so familiar that suddenly we stop questioning it. It becomes a habit and it lives in day-to-day routines before we even begin to realize it. This has the ability to leave you feeling insecure, drained, and disconnected from yourself as a whole. 

It is not realistic to sit here and preach that you must always love everything about yourself. Our brains are not wired to do so. Truthfully, you are not going to love everything about yourself. However, acknowledging something about yourself is a great first step. This is where gratitude comes into play. We can begin this by noticing what is instead of fixating over what isn’t. Gratitude allows us to acknowledge what is present without denying what is difficult.

Some examples of this include:

• "My hair may not be on my side today, but I am grateful my outfit is."

• "Today felt really heavy, but I am grateful I showed up anyways."

• "I may not love how I look today but I am grateful I still put effort in."

Statements such as these ones allow us to shift our focus and create space for compassion within ourselves. Affirmations also allow us to do this by forcing us to be present and gentle with ourselves.

Affirmations can look like: 

• "I am more than how I look today."

• "I deserve to give myself kindness the same way I give kindness to others."

• "I can feel uncomfortable in my body and still treat it with respect."

• "I am beautiful even if my brain is trying to tell me I am not."

Affirmations focus on encouraging respect over judgment within ourselves. This drives us to look at ourselves as something to care for rather than something to fix. Now, tying affirmations with gratitude is the key to learning how to love yourself. This can sound like

"I am grateful for my body, and I am learning to treat it with kindness."

Making sure to take that criticism and turn into neutrality is critical because that eventually turns to kindness. It is not possible to jump from "I hate myself" to "I love myself" in one day. It takes time and practice as most things do. The reality of it all is that everyone is beautiful in their own ways and it is still the least interesting thing about them. Self-love is a journey, not a switch to flip or an overnight lesson. By practicing gratitude and affirmations we gradually replace self-criticism with self-love. Our minds are wired to love structure and routine.

This is why negative self-talk quickly becomes a habit. On the contrary it is also possible to challenge that negativity with positivity and have that be the new habit. We only have one body and one mind for our whole lives. It is time to treat it with kindness. Start small, be patient, and give yourself grace. The act of showing yourself kindness is one of the purest forms of love you can practice.