When and where did I discover self-love?

Few months back, Not receiving a reply back on Instagram from my crush was giving me a world of anxiety, and I was about to explode.

I was pacing up and down from my bed, analyzing every conversation we had before this last one, and all of a sudden a rush of doubts started flooding my brain.

Am I being replaced? Why did I think he is within my league? Why did I say that? I should probably take courses before talking to anyone? Why do I even try talking to people, they always disappoint? Am I losing him? Can I do anything to win him back?

Anxiety is an ignorant state. It makes you believe that everything is an emergency.

And then he messaged back, that he was popping…that’s it.

Now, obviously I cannot tell him about the anxiety attack I just had. I’m aware that my insecurities can be exploited. And this is not happening for the first time with me. Not, getting positive responses from people always provokes my brain to go into a fight/flight /freeze mode.

But, I cannot lose this guy, he is just too perfect for that. ( Why I think a guy with whom I cannot talk about my anxiety is perfect is altogether a different topic). I decided to acknowledge my anxiety issues and back track this pattern. I sat everyday tapping my heart chakra and my solar plexus, telling my body that it is safe for her to tell me why it feels so anxious around relationships. It is that easy and not that easy, you need patience. You have to win your confidence to be the confidant that will not re-create the unsafe environment or judge.

And then, in bits and pieces things will start hitting you, it is like writing a poem, you just cannot tell the source. Basically, I realized that I don’t understand why someone will love me, what makes one lovable? When people are telling you that you are beautiful, are you looking beautiful that day by luck, or you are an attractive person?

I realized that when you are a child, you see everything from logical perception. So, when my parents tell me to do something to get permission to play in the evening, and I do that, yet they tell me that I cannot go just because they are feeling like it, I don’t get the logic. And when this happens for 16-17 years of life, you don’t trust people to act as they said they will do, you don’t trust life to happen as it is happening for others, and you don’t know what you can do to make it right. Every fu**the thing is out of control, and all you have is this build up energy or memories which are evident to the fact that everything is out of control.

Eventually I became a fighter because my world was literally at war, but I was a fighter, who was not ready to invest in herself. So, you go through life in a survival mode, doing the bare minimum, over criticizing yourself for never ever being good enough, and over thinking-over doubting everything my every logic.

This message from myself was eye-opening for my conscious brain, eventually getting to realize that I was never loved, that at my core I’m craving for love, and probably I’m a fighter because of the default self-love program installed in all of us. But, I don’t know how to love myself.

Knowing that I was never loved, made me discover self-love, because I’m too important to never get love.

What is Self-love?

There’s one being the self, there's another watching and loving the self, and both belong to the same person.

I stretched my arms to bend backward to initiate my daily surya namaskar salutations, and tears rolled off my eyes. I kept my eyes closed. Let the music run. And said nothing so that my body can know that I know, and I’m here.

I completed the salutations, and sat on the ground, hugging myself, crying, and shushing myself. I melted on the floor of my sunroom. The duality of ourselves came to me, being the child and the mother at the same time came to me. I shushed myself to sleep.

And for me that is self-love. You pay attention to every part of you, you listen to every hurt of yours, you talk about all the suppressed memories of yours, and you pamper. Sometimes it is tough love, sometimes you baby talk, sometimes you just sit alone in your favorite restaurant, eating the burnt cheesecake.

There’s one being the self, there's another watching and loving the self, and both belong to the same person. And both stand in front of the mirror admiring the facial hair, and the jaw line, that can beat the Tom Cruise (s) of this world.

How to love and respect myself?

Step 1: Join shameless facebook or any other social media groups, where you can send voice notes or msgs, announcing your love to the world. It is weird but you don’t deserve anything less than a gutsy lover.

To do this, you have to find “Self-love” groups.

Step 2: Go in the mirror while you are brushing or flossing, and say that I love you “Your nickname”.

To do this you need not to be dead.

Step 3: Get a book where you can write about the things that you love about yourself, for example you can breathe and that's a pretty vital thing to do.

To do this you have to kick yourself out of your pessimistic mindset, and get creative.

Step 4: Start cutting the toxic people out. If not physically, start doing it mentally.

To do this you need to know what is toxic and what is not, and point that out to yourself. Don’t go out matching notes with other people on somebody’s toxicity level, apparently toxicity is also subjective.

Step 5: Nothing survives without knowledge, so read about self-love, behavior patterns, and stuff that you need to know more about yourself.

To do this you have to be okay with yourself, even if you just ready a para or hear an audiobook. Don’t burden, and don’t procrastinate, aim for the easiest target and hit it.

Step 6: Do this for 100 days, nothing less than that. And write all the changes that have started happening around you.

To do this you have to stop being on the autopilot mode always. Get out of it and observe.

Parting words

Self-love is a love that happens gradually but lasts for a lifetime. Give it a shot, you’ll come out beautiful on the other side.