A fun fact about me is that I have spent the past 20 years of my life hating myself & my body. Loathing. Unadulterated Loathing. For my face, my voice, my clothing. (Okay, not the clothing but I was on a roll.)
20 years!!!!! That is a long fucking time!
I have spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about all the parts of me that I absolutely detested and hated. And you know what? Hating yourself is exhausting. Critiquing yourself, living inside of you head during every encounter & interaction? It’s TIRESOME! The effort it takes to constantly be “on” inside of your own head to be a critic of every single little thing? It’s a full time job except there’s no pay, no vacation, no benefits. You’re working non-stop for no reward.
I’ve gotten so exhausted by it, so overwhelmed with all of the constant negativity, that I felt as if I’d hit rock bottom. And I just finally decided: I’m done.
I’m done hating myself. I’m done spending 99% of my time living inside of my own head. I’m just… ready for a new chapter, to try it another way. Main characters shouldn’t hate themselves, right? They should be their number one fan! So I started to embark on a self-love journey… except, it’s a lot easier said than done.
How do you even begin to rewire your brain and your thinking? How do you begin to start leading with love for yourself instead of all of the negative thoughts you’ve been so programed to think?
I sought advice anywhere I could find it, from any source under the sun. One such source suggested talking to yourself in a mirror to build up your confidence; say the nice things you’d say to your friends to yourself.
“Okay,” I thought “let’s do this.” So I stood in front of a mirror and I felt… stupid. So fucking stupid. I started to laugh at myself — how did I think that I could possibly change things? I couldn’t even stare at myself and say something nice. It was impossible.
But… I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t give up. There was no other option for me. It’d be easy, yes, to go back to the way I’d been doing things but I couldn’t. I made the decision to be the main character of my own life and be someone who leads with love in all facets. And that had to include loving myself.
The next morning, I jokingly looked at myself and said “you look very nice today, Vivian.”
And guess what?
It worked.
I laughed but I didn’t shy away. I actually repeated it and, yeah, felt a little better. Suddenly, it just became this mantra I repeated to myself every morning.
“You look very nice today, Vivian.”
Soon, I started to feel the benefits of speaking to myself with the love & grace I give to others. I started to feel a little lighter and see the good things first, not the bad. It took feeling silly to feel love but isn’t that great? The solution to my negativity wasn’t all of this forced positivity. The solution was silliness. The solution was being generous with myself and being able to laugh when I’d spend the past 20 years not laughing. Finding a way to bring a lightness to a dark scenario.
You don’t need to stand in front of a mirror and chant serious chants in order to feel good about yourself. Sometimes, you can just quote a favorite movie and take it from there.
The point of this is that loving yourself shouldn’t be harder than hating yourself. It should never feel like work (yes, it’s work but it should feel good like going for a nice walk on a crisp fall day not scaling a mountain with no water). It should feel like a full exhale, not like you’re holding your breath.
My therapist told me something recently that I feel really applies to the journey of self-love: don’t leave before the miracle happens.
Meaning — don’t give up on loving yourself before you’ve even really begun to try.
Life is too short for us to want to stay hidden in a dark cave of self-loathing. We should be out, at the top of the peak, dancing like Maria and embracing the sunlight.
Main characters? They embrace themselves — flaws and all. And that’s what we should be doing: embracing all of ourselves, even the bits we deem ugly or unworthy because guess what? They’re not and they are. You’re your own worst critic and it’s time to turn those negative reviews into 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Start small & let the love grow.
And most of all, remember this: you look very nice today, Vivian.
xx
Jenn