Today I wanted to talk a little bit about self love or how to love yourself, because at the end of the day, how can anyone love you if you don’t know how to love yourself… That is a food for thought moment, huh? Some people want to wait until someone loves or likes them a little bit first to love themselves. They want to wait until they get contacts, or lose a little more weight, or finally dye their hair to love themselves. Nope! You can’t do that. You have to love yourself now as you are at this very moment, as you used to be, and how you will be in the future.

Why? Well each version of yourself from the past, present, and future is still another version of yourself. You may have regrets. That is human. You may not have liked that thing that you said, or that moment you did something so bad that you would like to forget it. You many not like how you used to look or dress, but that person was still you, and you have to learn to let go, learn from your mistakes, and move on. A lot of people can’t fully love themselves because they are still upset about things in the past. You can’t change the past, but you can use the present to make way for your future.

Growing up I was bullied, verbally and physically, to the point where I cried all the time. I acted out. I didn’t know what to do. I just wanted to disappeared. I just wanted to hide and not exist anymore. I was made to feel ugly and bad about my life. I was always a little strange, somewhat weird, and socially awkward. I’ve always been smart too. While my parents had money, we were still far from being rich, but that didn’t make any difference. I got picked on for all of those things, and when they ran out of things to make fun of me for, they made stuff up.

Being bullied really put a damper on my childhood. I had some great, fun moments, but the bullying really hurt me . It really made me feel horrible and I doubted myself. I doubted how I felt, acted, and who I was a person. Then one day I decided to love myself. I decided to embrace all of the flaws and things that make me me.

I love myself regardless of what may or may not be wrong with. They way people feel about you is their opinion. At the end of the day you have to live with yourself, so why not ignore the bullshhhhh and focus on loving you. Like I said before, I love my flaws and the positive things about me too. There are times when someone’s opinion of me can get me down, but because I love myself I am able to get over it more quickly.

Ways I Used to Learn to Love Myself:

1. Decide to love yourself.
2. Tell yourself that you love you everyday.
3. Look in the mirror and embrace the pros and cons that make you you. Yes, even the imperfections!
4. Learn to love your flaws, so that whenever someone mentions them, that person loses their power over you.
5. If you feel there is something you would like to change, change it by setting a goal in a timely matter.
6. Or just accept yourself.

Photo from here.