Do I Even Like Me?

Taking baths and doing face masks, literally don’t mean a thing in our self-care journeys if we’re doing absolutely nothing to work on loving ourselves. I mean deeply love ourselves. That candle or glass of wine will make you feel nice in the short term, but deep down what work are you actively chiselling away at in order to become the version of you that you can actually stand? This week on the blog, I dig deep and explore do I even like myself?

My own approval is all I need.

Why Moi?

Why do you see the values in liking a perfect stranger, when you don’t even know the reflection in the mirror? We vaguely float around, avoiding the sight of them, but at the end of the day- do we like its reflection? You are the only one who will know yourself, and I mean like deep down, the parts we don’t often show to others. The inner critic, the inner self-doubter, do we know them extremely well? Would we want to be friends with them? How do we expect someone to show us a love that we are not willing to give to ourselves? Or how do we want someone to love us unconditionally, when we are so tough on ourselves? When we don’t speak kindly to ourselves. No one is perfect, far from it- but when it comes to relationships one of the questions we usually ask ourselves is whether this person’s short comings are things you are willing to live with. This is the same with ourselves, the only difference is, we can ACTUALLY actively work on them! Why do we seek outside sources in order to either ignore or to give us things we feel we’re lacking? You have yourself, all of the time. Legit, sometimes it’s annoying- but what I mean is, we need to make sure it’s a healthy, happy and open space for ourselves. Flaws and all, we should embrace all that we are and in doing so- we will then be able to attract that “right types” of people into our space, because at our core- we are settled within ourselves. This is genuinely something I am actively working on for myself, which is what started this blog post.

Happiness is an inside job, don’t assign anyone else that much power over your life.

Who Are You Trying To Love?

I think part of the self-love journey is accepting yourself as you are, no longer trying to shape yourself or your thoughts into someone else, or who we believe others want us to become. When we make or take shortcuts, when we do things which don’t align with us, who are we trying to love? It might be a version of ourselves. But don’t get me wrong, we are constantly changing and that’s not a bad thing at all, but we must continually work towards being the person we would like to fall for. Behave in the ways you would like someone to treat you, be your own partner, know what you are seeking within yourself and additionally this will transfer onto a partner. You can’t love yourself out of negative life choices, but we need to let go of the things we cannot control. That lifting of the load is self-care, dropping the guilt or the shame is self-love. Working to remove the mental weight and baggage we give ourselves, is self-love. Being ourselves and staying true to that, setting and reinforcing boundaries is self-love. It may not be the sexy ones we see on social media, but it’s just as equally important. What I have come to realize is that every time, I do something that doesn’t fully align with how I feel, I am really lying to myself. In order for me to avoid or at least reduce the number of times I am “regretting” decisions, it means I have to be rigid with my boundaries. If it means that I lose people, then so be it. I don’t want someone who will try to get me to change my mind on something- that means they don’t respect me. My boundaries deserve to be respected and I deserve to stand in my truth and love myself as I am and all other things will fall into place.