"She's imperfect but she tries

She is good but she lies

She is hard on herself

She is broken and won't ask for help

She is messy but she's kind

She is lonely most of the time

She is all of this mixed up

And baked in a beautiful pie

She is gone but she used to be mine"

- Sara Bareilles

For as long as I can remember I have had issues with self-love. I never thought that I could be “enough” for anyone or anything. Not smart enough. Not thin enough. Not funny enough. Not pretty enough. You get the picture. So I filled my head with all of these negative thoughts about myself, and pretty soon they just consumed me, and eventually I brainwashed myself into believing that if I wasn’t “enough” of those things, I wasn’t “enough” to be with anyone. I wasn’t “enough” to be friends with this person. I wasn’t “enough” to be in this club/organization. This led me down a dark path, which took me years upon years to get off of. I hated my mind, my body, and everything that made me myself. I wouldn’t allow myself to do the things that I wanted to do because I was insecure and didn’t think that I was one, capable of, and two, deserving of. Not knowing how to accept myself for who I was ended up keeping me at a standstill when it came to true happiness.

Fast-forward some years and here I am, full of love for myself and others, plenty to go around. Do I have bad days? Of course, but honestly who doesn’t? The trick to it all is to allow happiness into your life. Accept the good and the bad for what they are – moments and things that just cannot be changed. If they can be changed, then go out and do something about it. I hear and see a lot of people bashing others who are overweight that support self-love. Why? Well because they’re evil people for one, but that’s beside the point. They say that this is promoting obesity and saying that it is a lazy approach on being unhealthy. Essentially they are saying that if you aren’t healthy and fit, you can’t love yourself, right? I really don’t think that’s how that works. Learning to love yourself takes a very long time for some, and once they get there, they should never be criticized for doing so. Sure, you can try to lose weight and get in shape again, but in doing so you do not have to be fueled by self-hatred.

A famous saying is something along the lines of “you can never be loved until you love yourself.” This is a TERRIBLE thing to teach people. I’ve heard this line said over and over again since I was a child. Do you know what that did to me? It made me realize at a very young age that I didn’t technically “love” myself, so that must mean no one could love me. I was in no place to learn any form of self-love back then, so I was stuck in limbo when it came to relationships and friendships. I don’t know when I really stopped believing in this saying, but I’m sure glad that I did. I realized that there are many people who can love you and in doing so help you to learn to love yourself and all of your quirks that make you, well, you.

Even though it may not seem like it, it is definitely possible to learn to accept the things that you don’t like about yourself that you technically cannot change. There’s only one you in the world, and that you must be pretty unique. Don’t spend so much time being upset about the things you cannot change, and instead spend time embracing the things that make you an individual person. Everybody has unique qualities about themselves that they can learn to embrace, and the second they do, they’re one step closer to achieving a better level of love for themselves. Learning to love yourself opens a whole new world of opportunities. It can give you confidence in times that you really need it. It can give you a new sense of direction when it comes to where you’d like to be in life later down the road. Most importantly, it can give you the experience of that journey to find self-love, and in turn can help you help others to achieve the same thing.

I am finally beginning to find myself again and learn to love all the things about myself that I once hated. I hope that one day, we can all embrace our imperfections and learn that happiness is such an amazing feeling that we should grace upon ourselves. Creating your own happiness begins with acceptance, and once you figure that out, you’re set for life.