It can be hard some days, but everyone needs to learn to love themselves.
This should be everyones new years resolution; self-love and a healthy mental state.
First thing is, people do not see the problems with self depreciation.
Just like other forms of mental health, it is highly stigmatized.
I apologize, but I’m going to quote One Direction here: “you don’t know you’re beautiful, that’s what makes you beautiful.”
In other words, as soon as you think of yourself as beautiful, you are not so beautiful anymore.
In a world where mental health should be given more priority than it is, this is the first step towards combating things like suicide and depression.
Again, stigma plays a big role in how we see ourselves in the mental health sphere.
How about we start to see self-love and confidence without looking at it as being cocky and self righteous.
Looking back, and looking forward, I can see how my own image of myself has improved.
So here we go, I’m going to try it. I’m going to look at myself as a beautiful person.
I try not to compare myself to others, but I have not stopped completely.
I can honestly say that I have stopped looking at myself negatively when I get my photo taken.
And I try to look at what I accomplished more than what I failed to do.
Now how did that sound?
Was it me speaking self-righteously about myself and how great I am, or was it me showing myself some self-love?
Failure is a big part of it.
Looking at my own physical self, it was failure to not have all the things that growing up I saw as important.
My eyes crinkled at the sides too much. My smile was too crooked.
I was not thin or fit enough.
I did not do my nails or make-up.
This was me failing to look pretty because I did not fit the definition that I was told it was.
Failing to be a part of the crowd was another thing that loomed over my lack of self-love.
I loved to write and read books.
Among people my age, there was no one around to share this love with.
To my young mind, I was failing to like what other people did.
I was a nerd by all definition of the word because I was different.
It is the most insulting thing a young person can be called according to popular culture.
For me, this created a lot of social awkwardness that, for the most part, went away when I went to university and took classes with other people who were nerds as well.
I was always proud of my nerdiness because no matter how often I was teased about being different, I still wanted to be myself.
This was the first success that made me value myself a little more, seeing myself as someone who still wanted to be themselves instead of someone else’s view on what I was supposed to be.
This is where it all starts.
If kids, especially teens at that socially awkward age, learn to love themselves, despite what other people tell them, then they will grow up to be self-loving adults.
