You’ll never hate yourself into someone you will find worthy of love

Sometimes I find myself looking at my body, thinking about the YEARS, I’ve spent hating on myself, looking at my own feature with disgust and rejection.

It momentarily makes me really sad, that it took me, pretty much 33 years, to make it my very own quest, to LOVE ME AS I AM.

Why did it take me so long?

Well, I think the answer is quite nuanced and most people are familiar with self loathing thoughts and behavior, so I think, you all know what I mean, when I say, that it’s pretty normalized to look down on yourself, not just for women.
In the end, it’s what capitalism thrives of, really.

It sneaks up on us and I think a lot aren’t even aware, how cruel their inner monologue, in particular, really is.

I realized, when I started journaling again in lockdown and started to observe my own thoughts more attentively.

One day, I hear someone say, if you were to say the words you speak to yourself, out loud, they would be labelled as abuse.

And that one hit hard. Like a punch in the gut, that smacked all the air out of my lungs. I still get a queezy feeling, thinking about it.

How do you really feel about yourself?

I started making a list of all the things I said to myself on a daily basis and no wonder my self worth was low.

I realized that the confidence I portrayed to the world, was very fake and a way to cover up, from the fact, that inside I felt worthless and unlovable.

And whenever I dared to share this with anyone, which wasn’t very often : But you’re so pretty/ hot/ insert physical compliment here.

So I learnt to keep these thoughts to myself, hoping one day, if I kept pretending hard enough, I’d start to believe it or if I finally find a partner, that I feel happy and content with, I’d start to believe in my own worthiness.

It’s a funny double edged sword that one.

I knew I could be pretty, when dolled up and I also knew I could get most guys, if I really wanted to.

But that gave me nothing but a big head, my immense ego, did not protect me from the loneliness, feelings of inadequacy and fear of being abandonment by everyone around me. If anything, it made everything so much worse.

My ego was often in the way of truly being accepting of myself.

It was a vicious cycle, that I wasn’t sure how to get out of.

All I knew is that I didn’t want to feel this way anymore.

I’ve always been fascinated by how people worked, so I started looking into human behavior, psychology and all things related to emotional intelligence.

And the penny started to drop,

Not only did I grow up around a mother, that knowing what I know now, also must have had low self esteem and low self worth, even though she was physically and mentally gorgeous (she passed away 12 years ago, unfortunately I cannot ask her), but I also watched her, putting herself down in front of the mirror almost daily.

My mom passed me her body-dysmorphia, without even realizing, maybe her mom passed it to her and it was just a normal thing to her.

I remember bright as daylight, how weight and looks were ALWAYS a topic growing up. in my family.

So no surpise, I became my biggest critic.

I also started to understand, that I hadn’t been given any tools or resources, that were putting the emphasis on loving myself first!

Anything I’d done was outside focused.

Early on I was good in school and at extra curricular activities, because I’d get praise for them. Later I became focused on my good looks, because I’d get attention from boys.

I was competing with and comparing myself to others since a very early age.

Some would maybe blame it on the rising media and pop culture and while that sure has been a catalyst, I cannot recall that my parents did anything to interfere those competitive tendencies or comparing natures.

And this is not to say, it’s my parents fault, my parents were great, they surely weren’t perfect and did some things, that affected me in certain ways, but non of it was intentional and they were very supportive, in the ways they knew and were able to. They were very leniant, open-minded and forgiving. They gave me lots of space to discover my ideas and space to grow in the ways that I was curious about.

I am very thankful, because one of the things my parents gifted me with, was that freedom and space to develop and explore my own mind, and that gave me the ability to use my own brain. ( which sometimes results in overthinking, but let’s not veer of the path too much)

My perspective and focus started to change

So I started to understand that it was time to rewire my own thinking, to change my focus on my internal state and stop trying to please everyone or being liked by everyone but myself.

I started this journey in 2020 and now in 2024 - I can proudly say, that I have finally arrived at a place, where I truly am loving and accepting of myself and I mean everything, that makes me, ME.

Because thats the point, I came to, there is no other ME and that’s what makes me worthy, so beautiful and so uniquely lovable.

But that is no ones job or responsibility but my own.

You see, I think we are conditioned, to wait around to be saved by another.

Hollywood movies feeding us the narrative, that another is the only thing that can make us whole and sure, there is people that can contribute to your happiness, but what I’m saying :

You will never find your worth or home in them, if you haven’t started to look for it inside of yourself.

Your hurt by people and you are healed by people, is a universal truth, I also came to find over the years. I didn’t like it at first, it was much safer behind my own walls that I had build to protect myself from other people hurting me, or so I told myself.

But this truth comes with a great sense of agency.

If you’ve been hurting yourself, you can also make amends and start healing those wounds you maybe not always have played a role in to be created originally, but you have definitely deepend at one point or another.

What I really want you to understand :

You cannot hate yourself into someone you will love.

You gotta start digging deep.

Whether it is something that’s been modeled to you from a young age or something that you’ve picked up along the way through societal conditioning.

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that you turn the focus back to yourself and shine lights into those corners, you’ve been turning into blind spots of yours. Occupying and distracting yourself from, because its too uncomfortable to go there.

I get it, it’s scary but wouldn’t you rather finally feel good about yourself?

And I mean truly good and happy about yourself?

Not the conditional, occasional kind you are trying to think about right now.

One thing that I really want for everyone on this planet, is to learn to love and accept themselves, as they are and realizing that even the flaws they consider hideous or disgusting are worthy of love.

Self-love starts this self-compassion that turns into self-acceptance.

It needs to grow. A skill you need to develop.

Hating yourself is nothing but a bad habit, you can unlearn again.

So let me help you.

Let’s create the biggest and supportive self-loving community we possibly can, because quite frankly, that’s the resistance this world needs.

Hyper individualism kills us slowly, it separates us from our inherent needs of togetherness and connection.

Because remember:
We are hurt by people and we are healed by people.

Let’s do it together, the healing I mean.

Because quite frankly, we deserve to feel good about ourselves.