SELF LOVE……

Have you ever stopped to wonder what happened to your ability to love yourself unconditionally or wonder when did your sense of feeling inadequate begin? In analyzing myself, I believe mine started around my first year of junior high school and managed to remain well into adulthood. Before then nothing really existed except my very narrowed view of the world and my own inner voice, which served to let me know I was okay. Entering junior high school however, marked the year that I discovered boys and the concept of being cool or being part of the in crowd. During this time I also discovered voices outside of myself and they were not terribly kind. I remember vividly the echoes of voices saying, "you are fat, not pretty enough, who does your hair or simply that dress looks ugly." I failed to ignore them lacking the maturity to distinguish my own inner voice from the ones outside and quickly those outer voices became my inner voice too. In order to silence those voices and to move forward I simply became more introverted keeping people neatly stored away in the periphery, while not letting anyone really get to know me except on a superficial level. I had conclude that opinions had already been formed about me and the less I said the less they would know how inadequate I had begun to feel. I did not dare to express my feelings out loud or to even admit I had feelings, because the pain of admission felt to great to bare. This single life event seemed to mark the beginning of my trek into the void of self-hate and the loss of my ability to love myself for simply who I was. My self-hate managed to manifest itself in the form of a quiet emotionless loner, who over ate and made poor choices when selecting friends. Today I mourn the loss of that 12-year-old who simply wanted to just be and I regret forming the walls I so carefully constructed to keep people out of my life, because it left me feeling so alone. Even now writing about how I felt then feels painfully uncomfortable, it's funny (not in the laughing definition), how easy it is to write about the detached issues that are rooted in intellect. You know the ones that don't come with emotional baggage wrapped chaotically around them and don't make your heart flutter at the mere thought of them. For me self-love is not a detachable issues instead the very thought of internalizing it tends to cut close to my heart and evokes a desire to curtail my emotional response by suppressing it with intellect. I believe that self -love is the first lessons in life that we should learn, but perhaps it is the most difficult one to learn. We all have the ability to give love to others freely and without conditional restraints. However when asked to turn it inward we find ourselves riddled with conditional restraints and here lies the paradox of loving one self. I know for myself I have to turn off the inner voice that says, "I could love you more if you looked this way or behaved this way or did this right." It sounds trivial as I sit here and write about it and yet there are times when this inner voice echoes like the clap of thunder over a seemingly calm sea. I would love to say that I don't struggle with the issue of self-love each and every day, but I do and I work hard at accepting myself good, bad or indifferent. I can tell you it gets better, for me the farther away I got from high school the better the world became. I formed different relationships with people and the more personal success I achieved the more I found my own inner voice and an inner strength that comes from an overwhelming desire to be a part of the world. You find yourself surrounded by people who are willing to see beyond the walls you have constructed and they inspire you to be more than you dare to be and they encourage you to just be you. They don't care if you are fat, pretty, smart or if you should have zigged when you zagged and they challenge you to see you as they see you. Life is like the lines from the movie "Hope Floats," beginning are scary, endings are usually sad, but it is what you do in the middle that counts. I am still working on my middle and I believe you attract that which you practice and I also know that loving myself is integral to defining who I am. I have begun to realize by loving myself, I am more capable of sharing that side of me that gives love to others unconditionally. For me self-love means loving myself enough to want the very best for me and it starts by taking care of myself physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. But it also involves letting other people in especially the ones that see you for who you are in all your simplicity and complexities and still like and love you anyway. I still like to mask my feeling and I find expressing them even more uncomfortable it's like an automatic knee jerk response to withdraw and stay silent until I get to know people or allow them to know me. However over the years I have dared to share my feelings with other people and I have discovered that when you let the walls down even just a little people come in and you find commonalties in life that bind us together and you are not alone. I think I found my ability to love myself in the eyes of the people who accepted me good, bad or indifferent, but I also found activities to do that I was really good at. Being good at something gave me an enormous sense of accomplishment and as my self-esteem grew so did my internal reference of I love me. Don't get me wrong I think the issue of self-love is more complexed then this and I also believe that seeking acceptance from others is not an absolute solution to resolving some of the conflicts surrounding this issue. But sharing your feelings with other people has a way of making you feel not so alone and participating in any activity that makes you feel good about feeling good is a great start. Self-love does not come easy, it is intimately linked to the relationships we develop over the course of our lives and at times to the achievements we successfully attain. We all owe it to ourselves to love ourselves good, bad and indifferent and I challenge you like I challenge myself each day to silence that siren song of self loathing, by taking the conscious route to self-love, by listening to your own inner voice, seeking out your own defining moment of accomplishment and by just daring to say I love me. Thank You My Friends……………………..Fujicat

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self help
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