Learning to Love Myself

I grew up hating myself. Learning how to love myself is hard. I'm able to list down every single thing I hate about myself and wanting to change it. Hoping that I'm a different person. It sounds sad and heart-breaking, but there's a lot of people out there who are the same. That they hate themselves. That they want to be able to change everything that they think is wrong about themselves.

I would always ask myself 'Why wasn't I born smart?' 'Why wasn't I born pretty?'. All these negative questions running through my mind 24/7. I would even start comparing myself with others, and that made me hated myself even more because I couldn't be like that.

I notice that society always has its way of trying to shape us. That we need to look a certain way or behave in a certain way. If you can't fit into a M size clothing, you're considered fat. Or that, you need to be a certain size to be approved by society. I honestly think that is wrong. Everyone is beautiful in their own way, with their own curves. No one is supposed to feel like they need to change something on them to please society. This toxicity is what causes people, including myself, to hate ourselves.

I couldn't remember when I started to hate myself. I couldn't love myself. I always manage to say every negative thing about me. When someone says something nice to me, it will not register into my head as a compliment. Instead, I'll always say 'oh, no I'm not'. I just can't and won't ever be able to see myself the way people, especially those who care and love me, see the way I am.

Imagine someone telling you 'I wish you could see yourself the way I see you', and all you can do was to remain silent because you just don't know what is so great about yourself that you'll want to see yourself in that way.

Self-love, self-love, self-love. It's what I keep telling myself. To look at myself in a different way. To be more positive and think good things about myself. Ignore what people say about me. We need to stop thinking of what people think about us.

It is never easy learning how to love myself. Until today, I am still learning how to love myself. Baby steps, I'll tell myself. Take baby steps, one day at a time. If there's something I hate about myself, do something about it. Change it. Change it so that I can love myself. I deserve that chance to love myself.

Sometimes, changing yourself isn't going to help you love yourself. Sometimes, changes doesn't make you feel any better. Learning to love myself, means that I need to change how I see, how I think and how I feel about myself on the inside. Giving me the opportunity to learn about myself, to know more about myself and to love myself better.

Life is a voyage of self-discovery. And sometimes, we have to be selfish and love ourselves more than others. Once we're able to love ourselves, that's when people are able to love us more. Learn to love yourself before loving others.

If you don't change and love yourself today, then you'll never be able to love yourself ever. Love is something we can choose. Just like every other emotion that you can choose to have. We can always choose to love ourselves. It is a choice within us. So, choose love. Love yourself. As I am choosing to love myself.