Do you always feel like you are in a race? Where you keep running but never make it to the end? Where you are pushing yourself hard to keep up with people next to you, watching them surpassing you, and start telling yourself: “I am never going to make it”?
Do you always feel that pressure of pursuing something, but too overwhelmed and anxious because everyone you know is smashing it in life, either getting married, making money, having kids, buying dream houses, or traveling all the time to new destinations? It really looks like they have figured it all out. At least this is what you and I see on instagram while scrolling every now and then, that it makes us feel down, helpless, unworthy, and start questioning ourselves: “Do I even deserve to have this?”
Our constant exposure to the fake life of random people on social media, that are not even aware of my and your existence, lead us to this toxic comparison that might ruin the most valuable thing we have for ourselves: SELF-LOVE. Yes, it is crazy how easy we can give up on something so important for nothing.
See, in our modern world, it is quite normal to celebrate the others, cherish them, love and support them, but when it comes to oneself, consistently engaging in a campaign of self-doubt, self-criticism and self-sabotage, seems to be the norm.
The others matter,
And I don’t.
But,
Is that true?
Did you think about the times when you’ve made yourself look smaller in a meeting just to let someone else who had the courage to speak and steal the spotlight, but you chose not? Did you think about the times you promised yourself to go to the gym but didn’t? Or maybe when you had to cut that toxic person out of your life but you couldn’t because you love them? What about you? When will your turn finally come?
Never, unless you starting putting yourself first !
Unless you realize that nobody is coming to save you, but you.
YOU are the main character in your life, not your partner, nor parents or friends and family. It’s you ! If you don’t love yourself, be kind to yourself, and treat yourself right, who else will? Self-love is simply this constant belief that you deserve what you wish for others. It’s that feeling of empathy and compassion towards yourself, to believe that you are worthy of unconditional love. Self-love is this ability to recognize your efforts, be proud of your achievements -as small as they can be- and be kind to yourself when things get tough.
And for those out there who already know what that means, CONGRATULATIONS ! You are lucky to realize it. I never knew that the term “self-love” existed until my mid 20’s. I have always been taught to care about the others, help them, be polite, make myself lovable, accepted, kind, be a good girl, etc. And to be honest, none of that have ever served me in my life. My excessive kindness made people take me for granted, and never believed in me. I was sacrificing my own wants and needs to prioritize someone else’s. I kept fooling myself with narratives that I blindly believed, until I was the only one responsible of my misery. During the process of people pleasing, I delayed my dreams, and unconsciously built a life that has nothing to do with who I AM as a person. Without me knowing that, all those feelings and frustration will come back one day, and punch me on the face, everytime things go wrong.
It always felt like: this is not what I want for myself, I deserve more, I am worthy of more, and no one will ever take that from me. And moving abroad was that one decision I took in the path of expressing my love to myself.
I embarked on this journey where I explored who I am away from the crowd, away from people who know me. I learned to learn what I like and dislike, what matters to me and what not. For someone who spent 20+ years being dictated how to live, what to study, and which career path is best, doing that exercise was just overwhelming, enlightening yet extremely shocking.
Here’s to taking the risk and saying yes to the unknown, to finding ways on how to be kind to yourself, to love yourself and celebrate your wins. To taking yourself out on solo dates, to saying no to what brings negativity into your life, to learning to spend time with yourself, and reflecting on who you are and who you want to become. It might sound scary at the beginning, to find out new facts about yourself. But trust me, IT IS OKAY ! We change while navigating life. And by accepting who we are, we give ourselves permission to become that person we always wanted to be.
Yes dear readers, it starts with us, with you believing that no matter how tough your life might be today, nothing can stop you from changing it, but you. So why not starting with a dose of self-love, and see where that will take you!