This Is How To Truly Love Yourself

Paolo Raeli
Paolo Raeli

Loving yourself takes time. I remember being in fifth grade getting weighed and measured and afterwards, our whole class compared our results. I remember seeing peoples faces redden, covering their eyes with their hands, realizing that they weren’t “average”. And then we got weighed and measured at the end of the year again. I had grown four inches and had gained weight as well. I remembering being the one trying not to cry, trying to pretend like I was fine with myself. But I wasn’t. I hated the fact that I wasn’t average. I hated the fact that I wasn’t normal. 

Loving yourself is a work in progress.

On some days, you can feel smaller than a grain of sand. You feel like nothing you’re doing is right, or normal, or healthy. You think the world is against you and there is nothing you can do about it. You look yourself up at the mirror and pick at every flaw. You bite your nails until they bleed. But you can’t seem to stop.

On other days, you feel on top of the world. You feel like you look just right, and like nothing can stop you. You feel happy with yourself and you feel enough. You almost feel high on your own self. During this time, you can smile back at your reflection, and you can walk into work with confident strides. You feel worthy of yourself.

You aren’t going to feel like this forever. Life will hand you every up and down it wants to give to you. Life will shower you with kindness, and then will bring your world under a rain cloud that doesn’t stop for weeks. You’ll go from loving life to hating it through the years.

But don’t let life make you resent yourself.

It’s normal to be unhappy with parts of you, and it’s so hard to accept you for who you are. But life, isn’t going to give you a free pass. You need to make your own happiness despite what is headed your way. You need to believe in yourself even when someone is against you. You need to stand up for yourself even in times of silence. You need to love yourself even through the difficult and long days that try to break you.

Don’t let life break down your spirit. And please, don’t let it take the love you have for yourself away. Don’t let it diminish the light inside of you.

Don’t let it drop your hope. Don’t let it break the faith that you have in yourself.

Know that loving yourself is a process. It takes years to truly be confident in yourself. It takes so long to finally get to this point. Be patient. Be gentle. Be kind. Know that it’s ok to make mistakes. And it’s ok not to be ok on some days. In order to get here, you need to stop letting people walk over you. You need to let go of people who only spit insults at you. You have to give yourself what you truly deserve.

You have to adore yourself like a lover would. But even lovers come and go. You are stuck with yourself. So, you might as well accept that, and have the strength to appreciate your own beauty and your talents. Have the strength to pull yourself out of the ocean that tries to drown you.

Have the strength to look into the mirror, even through your worst days, and to smile. Because you are alive. And you are youThought Catalog Logo Mark

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