To love yourself is a heavy topic to talk about. I am sure some people out there are willing to prove my statement wrong.
I want you to stop reading for a moment and ask yourself:
“What is self-love?”
“What does it mean and take to love yourself?”
“Do I love myself?”
“How do I love myself?”
“What does love mean?”
Many people have difficulties answering, and it is okay. Every response is different. This is also okay.
Self-love takes time and patience, and a lot of practice. To love yourself means to nourish your mind, body, and soul, knowing that you are enough and don’t need anyone else to be truly happy.
What do I mean by “you don’t need anyone else to be truly happy”?
It might seem that I am a little of the topic here. I am really not.
Many people interpret this phrase like this:
You don’t need others to be happy. Therefore, you need to be all alone. Alone protects you, makes you happy… The end.
No. That is incorrect. The real meaning of the quote is this:
Find happiness and comfort within yourself. Know that you are enough and do not need other people to rely on to be happy. You don’t need others to prove your worth. Your dreams value, and it is okay if everyone does not share your point of view.
Let’s make a more detailed definition of self-love, shall we?
Self-love is when you accept yourself with all your flaws. When you love yourself, you know that your happiness does not rely on others, neither does your worth. Standing out from the crowd, knowing your truths and values will not be well taken by everyone. To love yourself means to nourish your mind, body, and soul without needing someone to do it for you.
I am just 100% convinced that some people can use this post to justify their toxic behaviors.
Let’s talk about those individuals for a bit.
Toxic does not, equivalent to being true to yourself. Most toxic people have issues from the past that made them the way they are.
Those issues are neglected, sometimes not even acknowledged by the toxic person, or if they are on the surface, they are ignored or twisted in some way.
I am also seeing a “pattern” in humanity – We do not like to deal with our own issues and face them. It is easier to push them to the side.
I am perfectly aware of the fact that I am not the one to find the hot water. We all know that, in one way or another.
And, no, my statement does not mean, “I am accepting myself, and I live with my own flaws.”
How is this related to self-love, you ask?
Well, not dealing with your own issues and shoving them deep into the subconscious part of yourself create emotional wounds. Those emotional wounds evolve into doubts and fears. They stand as a barrier between you and you & between you and other people.
They become your shadows.
I will try to give my best definition of the shadows here:
Shadows are that part of us that we do not want to admit having. These are emotional traumas, repressed feelings, and hidden desires we are ashamed of. They make us uncomfortable, and we sometimes cannot see their existence.
They hide deep in our subconscious.
For some people, it is easy to acknowledge them. But this requires you to dig deep into yourself.
Some people require professional help because seeing your shadow-self and dealing with it on your own can be a dangerous task.
Shadows are grotesque. The more you try to hide and ignore them, the more power they use to fight you back and bring you down.
This is the greatest battle of all time. Fighting with yourself.
Shadows are different for every individual. Their strength depends on how hard you ignore them.
If you neglect them more, they build themselves more.
Shadows are smart. They know they are your weaknesses, loving to use that against you. Feeding off your powers, making you obey their every wish.
Now, they sound like villains. They block you from following your dreams, being unique.
The harsh truth is that they are you. You are the one blocking yourself from what you truly desire. You built the shadows, and now one question stands:
“Are you willing to deal with them or just live-in oblivion, letting them use and abuse you the way they want?”
Those shadows are the barrier between you loving yourself.
How do you deal with them?
The very first thing you do is to acknowledge them. Know that your shadows are there.
Here is an important note: If you feel that you are not capable to do this on your own, do not be afraid to seek professional help. By that, I mean a therapist.
Healing shadows on yourself can be dangerous. Not everyone can do it alone, and this is nothing to be ashamed of.
Not everyone can look objectively at themselves.
Being objective is possible when you do not know the person, so you do not include emotions in your statements, right?
No. You can be objective with yourself. It is just a difficult task to do.
After you know what your shadows are, comes the healing process.
I will try to explain the healing process:
Healing shadows is similar to recovering from a disease. I am saying similar, not the same.
Accepting your shadows is the way to go. You have to welcome them and know they are part of you.
You have to live with the fact that your shadows are there, even if it is uncomfortable.
You can feel ashamed or like a "bad" person.
It is normal.
No one likes shadows. They are your weak spots. Knowing that they exist is unsettling.
After the “acceptation ceremony” comes the part where you heal them.
I’ve heard a lot of psychologists say, “You cannot heal your shadows.”
Yes, you can do that.
Of course, you will remember they were once there they existed.
But hey, there were times you were ill from something, and you healed from it. You remember the memory of you being sick, but that does not mean you still are.
I know comparing physical with emotional wounds is unacceptable, for some, because you cannot heal your emotional self with physical medications.
There is not a pill that will make your shadows go away. I get that.
There is one medication that is the ultimate weapon for shadows – changing your mindset.
And this is the final step to curing your shadows.
You know they are there. Your shadows exist and controlled your life for a while.
Changing the way of thinking heals you. You are no longer submissive to your shadows.
Here, I see my mistake, and I am hurrying to fix it.
Some shadows are, in fact, normal things, but society, family circles, religions, or some traditions made those things abnormal.
And because of the willingness of us humans to not be outcasts, if we desire those things that are said to be abnormal, we are pushing them away, trying to hide them from the rest of the world. And what we create – shadows.
Those shadows - here is my mistake - are not to be cured. You live with them because they are normal.
Let me throw an example:
Being jealous of someone is not shameful. Jealousy is a completely normal emotion.
In fact, every emotion is normal, and it's okay to be experienced.
Think about it, if it is not okay to experience certain emotions, why we have them?
The real deal is to admit that you feel this emotion to yourself, to see why you experience it, and to let it go.
Create healthy boundaries with you and your own emotions. Acknowledge them, but don’t let them consume you.
There is that weird assumption that emotions make you weak. They do not make you weak. Being emotionless, faking yourself, suppressing different things just to be normal in society’s eyes is a weakness.
Knowing how to healthy deal with and express your emotions makes you strong.
Here I want to go out topic and say how much I hate the word normal. I despise it because we humans try to put one norm to everything. How can you put only one norm to something?
Normal is different for different people.
We humans just have a burning desire to put everything in some limitations. To make something acceptable. This way, we are all the same.
Enough, talking about that. I will talk about it in a different post.
I use the word, yes. To clarify, I am using it with the meaning that normal is colorful. There are always two sides to one coin, sometimes even more.
Back to – changing the way of thinking.
This is a difficult task. Imagine the process as a tower going down.
The tower is what you are, your ways of being. Changing your mindset means destroying that tower and rebuilding it. Changing your mindset may include:
Thinking outside the box; seeing more perspectives; being more positive; destroying some shadows and living with others, that you accepted and now work in your favor; knowing your own power, etc.
In conclusion, healing yourself leads to loving and accepting yourself. As you can see, it is a lot of hard work.
When you truly accept and heal some aspects of yourself, following your dreams without fearing what others will say, then, my friend, you love yourself, and you are experiencing true happiness.