These are my Self-Love Confessions

Self-love has always been one of my biggest challenges. Considering I have started a blog about love, it seems quite hilarious to even write this blog. But nontheless, I feel that it is my duty to be honest with you all and share that it has been a struggle for me throughout my whole life. I’m pretty sure the rest of the world struggles with this too…I’m just coming clean about it.

I have always been my biggest critic and it still seems crazy to me how I only realized it recently. I have discovered that I have very high expectations on everyone. I had never noticed it until now because I suppose I’ve always set the bar higher for myself.

For about 8 years (until recently), I had been carrying around regret & guilt that has over time turned into self-loathing, anxiety, depression and overall low self esteem.

When, I begun to think this way…I’m not sure. But today is the day that I can finally tell you that I have made some progress towards self-love.

These past 6 months have been a turning point for me. I had been under a significant amount of stress that had essentially forced me into a reflective state. Among my lifetime friend passing away, I witnessed hatred among family members that I never knew existed, I got caught up in someone else’s marital problems, had a major panic attack in my boxing class where I stopped breathing, oh and did I mention that I lost the one person I loved most in this world? My dog Emmy.
You can imagine that after all that, anyone would find themselves re-evaluating their life.

But you know, I’m extremely grateful for all of that  because it had forced me to do some serious soul searching…and for the first time in a long time, I began the journey of loving myself.

I’ve always been known as the girl that gives good advice, or the really passionate girl or the girl that really loves people. So it was shocking to me to find out how little love I had been giving myself.

Every time I would do something wrong or bad (in my eyes), I would curl up into a ball, eat my feelings and waste away either crying or watching reruns of Gilmore Girls. Hating on myself became an extra curricular activity for me. What I should of just realized is that we all make bad decisions once in a while, but the most important thing is that we learn from them and forgive ourselves. That’s what it means to properly love yourself. To recognize that you’re an imperfect human and that every mistake is an opportunity to grow.
I have learned that I want to love the world and in wanting that, comes curiosities and consequences. Yes, being curious can lead to drama, but it can also lead to discoveries and that is a trait that I love about myself. I would not be as knowledgeable as I am today if I never learned to be curious.

This situation has also helped me see how much regret I have been holding in me. From lost friendships, to wasted time, to missed opportunities, I have been seriously hating on myself for everything wrong I’ve been doing and I never give myself a break. Taking my recent situation as an example, what were the circumstances? Why did you do what you did at the time? Well I originally felt overwhelmed by family drama that I was always blinded to knowing about until recently and then, picture me in a new country by myself where I witnessed a mass mugging and army men with machetes in their hands…how would you feel? Oh I should probably mention that I’m highly sensitive too and the energy in Paris was horrifying.

I was petrified and I have never felt so alone and scared in my life. At this point I wasn’t receiving any contact from my love at home for whatever reason, family drama was still fresh in my brain and then along comes this person who feels equally confused in life and helps distract you with his funny ways of looking at life and his problems that you could help solve? Of course your going to allow yourself to get involved because your not thinking straight and your lonely and scared. When reviewing the circumstance and why I did what I did during that time, I just can’t be angry at myself because I was just trying to take care of myself and make myself happy during this tough time. Yes this decision led me to getting caught up in someone else’ problems, and it actually ended up spilling on to my own relationship problems,… but in the moment, I was doing what I could to cope with what I was going through. I can’t be mad at myself because I was in a high stress situation and I was just doing my best.

Present me has learned from this situation, but past me was only doing what she could.

Anyways, I’m telling you all this as a tool for you to apply to your own self-love journey.
Forgiving yourself and learning to love the mistakes you make, is so important to personal growth.

Lets get rid of regret and guilt and lets forgive ourselves and move towards self-love.
Here are my Four tips to helping you achieve this:

1) Figure out what the circumstance was when this situation happened.
2) List the reasons why you did what you did.
3) Realize that the person (you) that made those mistakes is in the past. There is only present you now, and now you are different.
4) Make a firm commitment to behave differently in the future.

I hope these tips help and definitely leave me a comment and let me know your thoughts about your journey to self love.

xo Melissa