Most people believe that self-love is something beautiful. It’s an ultimate goal and the end of a journey to reach our true happiness. Some people said that self-love is about being kind to ourselves, which involve the act of forgiving, being patient and ignoring what other people think about us.
Self-love is about accepting our flaws and being proud of our wounds. Self-love is putting our well-being above everything else. Yes, all of that is actually true; every act of kindness that we give to ourselves is called as self-love.
But, most people tend to forget the hard truths about self-love. Most people are too focused on the output of practicing self-love instead of being ready for what will happen in the process of loving ourselves. Most of us don’t want to talk about the process of reaching self-love and we tend to forget that loving ourselves required the feeling of being in pain.
When we talk about self-love, we don’t talk about the detachment or separation which came before we finally realize our own worth. Most of the time, self-love requires you to burn the bridge with the ones you loved as they didn’t treat you right. It’s about learning the art of letting people go and having no obsession to own anyone.
Self-love requires a painful realization that you’ve been taken for granted while you’ve done your best to love the people who were actually toxic for you. It’s about leaving some people who have abused your well-being and made you feel like a second option.
When we talk about self-love, we don’t talk about how painful it is to let go of those people who aren’t meant to be ours and be okay with that instead of blaming ourselves.
Not only about the people who didn’t treat you right, sometimes self-love requires you to leave the place which never makes you grow. Maybe right now, you’re stuck in a job that you don’t like. Maybe you’re staying in a city which makes you always remember your childhood trauma. You don’t realize that the more you stay stuck, the more you’ll hate yourself and your life.
Hence, self-love is about being brave to go beyond your comfort zone. Self-love is about having the courage to move out and facing the risks to start over.
When we talk about self-love, we tend to forget about how hard it is to leave something which has already felt familiar to us.
Self-love is also about being brave to stand alone. To go against the stream if you feel that it’s the right thing to do. Self-love is about speaking the truth and to stand up for yourself no matter how hard the situations will get. It’s about following your guts and your true calling rather on being forced to fulfill all of those society’s success standards.
Self-love is more than about taking care of yourself, but it’s about ignoring what other people say about you and stick to what you want to do with your life. When we talk about self-love, we talk about how exciting it is to do whatever we want in life. But, we forget how terrifying it is to stand alone. To do things differently without having an anxiety of being judged.
When we talk about self-love, we don’t talk about the struggle that we’ll go through. While the truth is, self-love is about fighting our own demons and conquering our own negative thoughts.
When we talk about self-love, we don’t want to talk about how lonely the process will be. We don’t talk about how depressing it is to heal our own wounds while being proud of having it. People don’t talk about how terrifying it is to start over and confront the risks while we try to always have faith that everything will work out fine. If I’m honest we simply don’t talk about how weak, wounded and broken we are while we try to always feel okay to ask for help and seek support.
Sorry for telling you the hard truth, but self-love is more than about putting yourself above all else. The process of self-love is not beautiful at all. It is a journey which will never stop. It’s about facing our fears and wounds. It’s about feeling okay, even though when we’re broken beyond repair. Self-love is actually a battlefield which is worth to fight for.
When you want to talk about self-love, tell them about the battlefield that you’ve won all by yourself.
Originally written by Rayi Noormega on Unwritten
Photo by Wang XI on Unsplash
