Self-Love & Why It’s Important

I hate myself. I flipping love myself and I’m proud of it.

Loving yourself seems so pretentious and self-indulgent but why? Why is loving who you are such a taboo subject that nobody really wants to talk about out loud?

For years, society has always told us that you have to look like a supermodel to be beautiful. You have to have a really successful career to be important. You have to be a man to be powerful. You have to be this, and you have to be that. It’s bullshit.

The truth is, you can’t be truly happy with your life if you’re always living by other people’s expectations. I will never have the body of a supermodel because well, I’m a chunk, I’m too short and my boobs would never fit into a size 0 dress – fact. So now, I’m changing the expectation. To me, being beautiful means to be happy, confident and a nice person. I may not have the prettiest face but god damn it, I will always make sure that I am there for someone when they need me and that is a much more beautiful quality. Being beautiful is never just the exterior yet, we’ve all been made to believe that it is. Screw anyone that has ever made me feel like I’m not beautiful in my own way.

Self-love isn’t just about being beautiful, it’s also about being proud of who you are. It’s taken me a while to figure out who I really am as a person. To be specific, it’s taken me 22 years, 3 break-ups, 4 years of living out of my family home and a lot of different experiences. I regret nothing in my life because it’s made me who I am today and with confidence and assurance, I can say that I am:

• Caring
• Loving
• Somewhat funny
• Generous
• Loyal (I can’t say this word without think about Georgia from Love Island!!)
• Sensitive
• Accepting
• Honest
• Open – maybe a little too much…
• Independent
• Introverted
• An Over-Thinker
• A Worrier
• Strong but also weak sometimes (who isn’t?!)

These are just some of my traits and if I thought about my personality in a deeper sense, I know I could unravel a few more and definitely a few more negative traits but again, that’s what makes me, me.

It’s so easy for me to sit here and preach about loving yourself and that everyone should just love themselves and be confident and that’s that. It’s sooooooooo much harder when actually put into practice. You have to really understand who you are, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you. Put yourself in situations where your personality will really shine, or it will really shy away. Both of these outcomes are good because you’re learning about who you are as a person and that’s the most important lesson you’ll ever learn.

Embrace who you are. I’m still learning about myself, every single day in fact and I embrace it. Don’t ever judge yourself on who you were in the past because that’s not who you are today. I’m nothing like I was when I was in school (thank god!) because I’m constantly evolving as a person.

Why is it important to love yourself?

This world can be a really shitty place to live sometimes and it seems like everyone is so full of hate. So sometimes, you have to a be little selfish to ensure that you are happy. If you start to love yourself, you’ll feel a little happier than usual, you’ll feel more motivated to do things that you wouldn’t do, whether that’s go for a run or do 10 more minutes’ worth of revision a night. You’ll be a better person to be around, you’ll have a more positive outlook on all scenarios around you, your stress will be reduced because you’ll look at things in a different light. You’ll begin to reflect on bad situations rather than resenting them. You’ll begin to learn from life lessons rather than dwelling on them. Most of all, you’ll love yourself and as Beyoncé would say, there is no better relationship than the one you have with yourself, and Queen B is always right.

What steps can you take to begin to love yourself?

• Look in the mirror and compliment yourself. Accept you are different, embrace it, empower yourself and ONLY speak positively about yourself.
• Define your own expectations. Don’t listen to what society thinks, use your own brain as you are in control.
• Reward yourself. You want that new dress from Topshop, right? Well go get it hun. You deserve it for being so fucking amazing and for getting through all of your struggles and still being here today as the strong person you are.
• Do some exercise. Loving yourself is important, no matter what you look like but do a bit of exercise because this will release endorphins that make you feel happier about yourself.
• Make a list of everything you have accomplished in life. That can be a qualification, a dramatic weight loss, a recovery from an illness, giving birth, starting a new relationship, getting out of a toxic relationship, anything.
• Stop comparing your life to other peoples. We are all on different paths. We are all going at our own pace because we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. You’ll be a lot happier when you realise that your life is completely different to someone else’s and it’s unlikely you’ll ever have the same journey. Enjoy your life.

Be unapologetically you, love yourself and embrace all of your differences because that’s what makes you who you are and there is nobody else like you.