Self - Love : A Never Ending Self Discovery Journey

I have been meaning to talk about self-love as many of you have asked me. I never really knew what self love was until a few years ago, when my teachers and mentors and everyone else started talking about it and asking us, students, to feel it, that is when I started noticing I was not really loving myself. I did not know how to.

I probably still far off of truly immersing myself into self-love, but over the years I realised the importance of having a healthy, loving relationship with myself. I have been hurt so much while I was growing up, I thought I must be so bad that I am not worthy of love. When I was bullied about being chubby or not wearing the last fashion pieces as a part of the growing-up-phase of life, I thought I am just not that lucky one.  Little did I know how wrong I was. And to be honest while I was growing up it was not as common to talk about self love and mindfulness, boundaries and worthiness. I was thinking of school, getting a job and work my way up on the ladder. We did not talk about self-love, instead we were talking about holidays and beautician appointments or going out for a drink with friends. Self-love in its own meaning was not a common expression back then.

Whereas nowadays it is one of those power phrases that we like using for everything. For me, it is only in the past few years that I started understanding that everything in life, my thoughts, actions and how I see myself comes from within and that is where self-love starts too.  How you relate to yourself, how you see yourself and how you treat yourself on a daily basis. Not just on a holiday, not just on special occasions but EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

Practices that helped me create a healthy relationship with myself:

Appreciating where I am  - Appreciating where I started and how far I have got. Celebrating the learnings that I received from life. Appreciating myself who I have become. A strong, courageous women who always stands on two feet in the arena of live.

Accepting who I am – I started befriending myself. I started spending time on acknowledging my qualities. I also understood where I am lacking and how to improve on certain things. Does it go easily or perfectly? Hell no! However, ever since I have awareness, I am committed that I do whatever I can to learn, to improve and be better version of myself every day.

Believing in my Body – I have always found hard to accept my body as it is. I was never a size small and I always loved eating. Especially ice cream. I am also an emotional eater, and suffering from anxiety and hormonal imbalance, so it is easy to fall off the waggon. It is, therefore, not surprising that all this creates an internal mess that affects every part of life eventually. What has changed though is that I started to notice my good bits thanks to some powerful women around me in all shapes and sizes. For example, I love my legs, which I did not notice before. I love my eyes and my smile. I also love my butt, although I do work for it a lot. None of them are perfect but hey, I have got to the point of liking them. So, it is a win for sure.

The most important thing that has changed is that I can stand in front of a mirror, looking into my own eyes and not feeling awful or disgusted about myself. Instead, I can smile, feeling compassionate and loving towards this amazing human being that let me become who I am now.

 3 Things I Have Learnt:

I am that I am.

Being kind to myself means thinking, speaking and acting kindly towards myself first, then towards others.

Appreciating my body as it is but never stop working towards the body that I want to live in.

Self-love to me is a never ending journey that creates learning opportunities about myself in a more compassionate way. Wherever you are on this journey, please stay on it, because it is worth it. The only person that you truly have to live with is yourself and it is wonderful to discover how amazing you are.

With Love, ME