To the Girl Who Doesn’t Love Herself,
“In a society that profits from your self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.” – Caroline Caldwell.
This letter is for the girl who finds it hard to see herself in a way that is so easily seen by others. The girl who has a hard time realizing that she is good enough and that God has handcrafted her perfectly. I often wonder if God ever get’s sad when He hears how we think about ourselves? That we find so many things we hate, even though He worked so hard to create us in His image. I recently read a post that said, if you were asked to make a list of all the things you love, how long would it take to say you?
Learning to love yourself is not an easy task in today’s society. Girls are gaining self-confidence from likes on Instagram and comments on their pictures saying that they are a 10/10 or that they have “cake”. Call me old fashioned but I would like to go back to a time where intelligence, humor, and kindness were valued along with a person’s outer beauty. If we can learn to look at ourselves in a positive way, then all of the rest is irrelevant.
I think the first step to loving yourself is coming to peace with who you are and what you want out of this life. You have to understand and respect yourself before you can expect anyone else to. Call me a nerd, but I am a big chart maker and I have found that this helps me out when I am struggling with my self-confidence. On one side of the chart, I write all of the things that I love about myself and on the other side I write things that I don’t like about myself. I embrace the things I do like about myself, and then I go through the negative list and figure out if it is something I can change or not. If I can’t change it then I have to learn to love and accept that God made me this way and move on. Once you learn to accept your flaws and love the person you have become, life gets a whole lot better.
The next thing that will help you on your road to self-love is how you control your mindset of others. Seeing other girls who bring out the little green monster in us can make it easy to judge and compare. Thoughts I have had so often include: “Why can’t my body look like that?” or “Ugh, her skin is perfect.” It is so easy for us to not only become negative toward others beauty but also tear down our own self-esteem in the act. It is a good idea to change the way you see others. Appreciate their beauty while still saying to yourself that you too are beautiful in your own way. Our mind will believe whatever we constantly tell ourselves.
The final step is to understand the importance of who you are hanging around. Don’t forget to surround yourself with people who make it easy to feel secure in who you are and what type of person you wish to be. They should inspire and motivate you every day. The company you are around is a direct reflection of how you feel about yourself.
I will leave you with this final thought. You are good enough, you will inspire people with this life, pray to God when you are feeling lost, and don’t forget that it doesn’t cost a dime to remind yourself that you are pretty great.
