The journey to self-love

Self-love isn’t easy. Neither is it the narcissistic monstrosity that is promoter by our culture. That is the opposite of self-love. Our culture’s idea of “self-love” is about projecting an image based on pride and taking what we can from the external world.

Real self-love is about our insides. And let me right now confess that this is one of my greatest struggles. Why? Because I’ve done lots of things in my past that I’m ashamed of. Lots of things that I, at the time, thought that I could just bury afterwards. But the cliché, that we can never escape from ourselves, is true. We can pretend that our actions don’t mean anything to us till the day we die and not grow one millimeter. But the day that we truly start caring about ourselves and our lives, they will come back to haunt us. 

Therefore, self-love is about bringing all of our darkness to the surface so that we can forgive ourselves and let it go. Real self-love is not a happy-pill that we can take and instantly feel good about ourselves and our lives. It’s a bitter medicine that needs to be taken many times before it has any effect. Because in order to love ourselves, we first need to take responsibility for ourselves and our lives. We need to dare looking at ourselves and not shy away from what we find. 

What I’ve found going through this process, is that this is much like peeling an onion. And the more layers I peel off, the more hurt I find. I’ve thought that I’ve brought my most shameful aspects to the surface many times, just to discover that there is even more there.

But I think that I’m finally starting to get to the core of the issue. And it’s strange to see how all of this struggling and complexity was in some way necessary. But that it at the same time led to a simple end. Namely that at the core I just ensnared myself in a bunch of thoughts. Thoughts that have nothing to do with who I really am and that I’m free to either believe or dismiss. 

I’ve done lots of destructive things. But in my confused state I actually believed that I was doing something totally justifiable. And every moment is a new moment. I’m free to choose something better. And every time that I become aware of an unwanted thought, I can just let it pass. I know that my relationship with God, myself and other people, plus what I believe that I came into this world to do, are what’s important. And anything that is not in line with this needs to go. 

I don’t need to believe thoughts that run contrary to who I really want to be. Who I know that I already am behind all of the layers of ego that I am not. I already love this person. That which I cannot love about myself is an illusion.

Photo by: Tim Mossholder on Unsplash