Just So You Know, You Can Love Yourself And Still Have Insecurities

You may love yourself, but you’re also a human and that means there are going to be days and moments where your self-love falters. You can still love yourself while also having some insecurities.

Self-love isn’t about thinking you’re perfect. As long as you’re a human being, perfection is going to be just out of reach. There’s a misconception that loving yourself means that you’re totally able to embrace every single part of you that you dislike. This isn’t true. It just means that you’re doing the best you can and your best is good enough.

Acceptance doesn’t mean you’re thrilled about the way everything is. Another misconception is that acceptance means you have to like everything. This is not true at all. You can accept something and still not be super thrilled about it. You can even practice acceptance and want to change things, that’s totally fine. Acceptance in self-love just means that you’ve taken a look at yourself and said “whether or not that aspect of me changes, I am still lovable.”

Insecurities are inevitable. I heard an interview one time with Jessica Drake, the epitome of what a woman in the Western world wants to look like. She’s absolutely gorgeous, super fit, has all the lady assets, and is essentially perfect to the average outsider. In this interview, she named multiple insecurities she had, one being her legs because she used to be picked on as a kid. Even a gorgeous model has parts of her body that she feels insecure about. Nonetheless, she also loves herself to pieces. Insecurities are a natural part of the bigger picture.

Self-love is a journey, not a destination. You don’t just arrive one day and say “hey! I love myself, everything is great now.” Rather, it’s an arduous battle of the mind, body, and spirit learning how to accept and love. This process is a lifetime journey. Self-love is never a place that you arrive at, but it’s something to keep working at forever.

You can have self-love and insecurities at the same time. I know, you often want things to be black and white. You want a yes and no, you don’t want two seemingly contradictory truths to exist at the same time. How can that be?! Picture a family member dying of cancer. You have both joy that they’re no longer suffering and you also have sadness because you miss them dearly. These two emotions seem to be contradictory, but they’re living side by side. Insecurity and self-love is just like this.

You know at the end of the day that you are so lovable no matter what. You could lose a job, be broken up with, or make a big mistake. The cool thing about self-love is that your feelings are based on internal circumstances rather than external. It comes from a place that cannot be touched by the outside world. It doesn’t really if the world crumbles around you, you still carry that love for yourself.

You’re going to have bad days, but it doesn’t mean you don’t love yourself. There are going to be days when you can’t get out of your head. You’re beating yourself up and you’re holding up a magnifying glass to your insecurities. This doesn’t change the fact that you love yourself. Just as a parent has days where they act in ways they aren’t proud of towards their child, but still love their child anyways, you too have unwavering self-love.

Self-love is composed of actions. If you woke up one day and were just filled with self-love without having to do anything, I’d love to know your secret. Most people have to work very hard at self-love. They have to wake up in the morning and choose to put themselves first. They choose to practice self-care and to do things in their lives that indicate they’re worth it. Self-love is essentially something you create.

It’s about what you do with the negative thoughts in your head. A big distinguishing characteristic of people who practice self-love is that they act in ways that are healthy for them. When you inevitably have the negative chatter going on in your mind, you’re able to redirect it or do something to distract yourself until it goes away. You don’t sit in the negativity for long periods of time, waiting for it to drown you. Instead, you fight back.

You have lovely friends who remind you of your goodness on your bad days. When you do have days where that negative chatter in your mind just won’t shut the f*ck up, you have an amazing support network to reach out to. You have friends who can remind you how lovable you are when you can’t seem to find self-love on your own. You know that part of having self-love is also letting love in from others around you.

Your insecurities are your teachers because there’s always room to grow. The work is never done. Since self-love is a process, there will always be new opportunities to practice it. Sometimes insecurities popup for no good reason, but often they popup to show you where you may still be stuck. You can shed some of your self-love light on your insecurities and watch the flowers grow up through concrete.