This Is How Pain Can Lead You To Self-Love

I think as a society, we really underestimate how hard loving ourselves really is.

It is not as easy as just taking a look at ourselves in the mirror and loving ourselves just based on what we see and what we like at the moment.

I am not talking about loving ourselves for our hair, our body, our eyes, or how sexy we are. 

Self-love runs deeper than that. You have to actually love yourself for who you are as a person and for what you have been through.

You have to be able to look at yourself knowing that you have suffered from an eating disorder, knowing that you have tried to take your own life, or have been a victim of bullying, and still have the will to say I love you.

For me, since struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, I find it so difficult to love myself.

When I look in the mirror now, I see what I have gone through instead of what I should see:

A beautiful, intelligent, strong, fighting woman who deserves to be loved.

A woman who has fought countless times for her life and won. A woman who has wanted not to be here at times because the going really got tough, but fought and stayed, conquered and triumphed.

I struggle a lot with being critical of myself as well and with the social media crazed world we live in, of course I want to feel accepted and a part of the crowd, something, unfortunately, I haven’t felt like I was a part of for pretty much my whole life.

I am a relatable person with a great personality, but I am not like everyone else. I am not living the dream life, traveling and sipping on mimosas with friends.

I am not the 23-year-old flexing on the ‘gram right now, even if I want to be. I am in DBT therapy instead, working to get my life together and heal from what I have been through.

And that does bother me sometimes because I wish this wasn’t a part of my story and things could be a little easier for me, but you know what, it is my story. And the kinder I am to myself, the better my life will be.

I have come to the realization that in order to thrive, in order to live, I NEED to love me. 

I need to stop caring about what people think about me. Who the fuck cares anyway?

People will always have something to say about you but at the end of the day, I am on the one who has to stand naked in front of the mirror and love what I see, not someone else.

I have been realizing these past days as I struggle through therapy that I have been holding myself prisoner to self-hate, by not freeing myself to self-love and self-acceptance.

As of now, I can’t say that I am 100% in love with myself, but I am definitely on that journey. And you know what, it is about time.

Perhaps, if I had been nicer to myself, kinder to myself all this time, the journey wouldn’t seem as hard as it seems.

Because, as we all know, you cannot control what happens in life. You can’t. I have tried.

But you can take the bricks that have been thrown your way and halt them over your shoulders and continue to travel this road instead. 

Love yourself. Please.

Through everything you have been through in your life and every mountain you have climbed because the more you love who you are, regardless of how imperfect you are, the more you are able to really accomplish everything you have set out to do in this life.

Currently, I am not there yet, but my pain is speaking to me and telling me to surrender to self-love in my life because I deserve it.

No matter what people say, no matter what you think about yourself, no matter how messed up you think you are as a person, self-love keeps you whole and is what is constant in your journey throughout life.

You may not have known it, you may not have even been listening, but maybe your pain has been leading you to love yourself.