In the last semester of my freshman year of college, my English professor had us do an exercise from the website learningtoloveyoumore.com to go along with a short story she had us reading. The website was created by the author Miranda July to go along with a collection of short stories she had written. The website features about 70 activities a person can do to get in touch with themselves. Upon entering the website, I was skeptical on how “writing a press release about an every day event” could even begin to help me love myself more.
I picked the simplest activity I could: it was called “saying goodbye”. I was asked to write a list of things I wanted to say goodbye to. I started my list with typical things: “say goodbye to the extra weight I put on this year”. But as I continued to list things I wanted to say goodbye to, I tapped into something and found parts of myself I didn’t know existed. “Say goodbye to your fear of sharing your talents” and “say goodbye to feeling guilty about how things ended with your ex” were on my page, fears and feelings I didn’t know existed made themselves known. After I finished the assignment, I felt like these things had really left me. I had never felt better about myself, and it started me on a path of learning to love the person I am.
Learning to love yourself is one of the most important parts of growing up. How can you love anyone else, if you’re unable to love yourself? I could never recommend starting to do something more. Being able to look in the mirror and love what you see is the dream of every person, and you’re capable of achieving this dream. Here are a couple of things I learned in my little mission to love myself more:
Start by removing toxic people from your life. Get rid of the friends that have been talking about you badly behind your back, and start surrounding yourself with the people who have been building you up. I replaced the friend with the jealousy issues (who would talk negatively about me to everyone if I spent any time with anyone else) with a friend who found out I could sing and signed me up for an open mic night so I could share my talent. The ideal friends to find are the ones who will “talk shit about you to your face, but stand up for you behind your back”.
Be confident in the choices you make! Don’t listen to anyone who has something bad to say about the choices you have to make; you’re the only one who has to wake up every morning and live with the choices you’ve made. If you want to get that tattoo, or that piercing, then do it! Who cares about the boy in your math class who thinks “septum rings make a girl go from a 10 to a 6” or the girl in your English class who thinks that “anyone with multicolored hair is obviously gay”. It doesn’t matter what those people think. If something makes you happy, then there’s absolutely no reason not to do it! This tip is especially important for life-altering choices. If I had listened to everyone who disagreed with my choice to change majors, I wouldn’t have realized that being an English major makes me happier than any other major ever could.
Pick out things you love about yourself. I suggest picking out things that don’t have to do with your looks, or things you own. Identifying things like “I am patient” or “I’m good with people” will help you start to realize that you’re more than the way you look on the outside or that people don’t just hang out with you because you have a pool. It's hard sometimes to imagine that we are more than our appearances, and as someone who struggled with the way I looked for an incredibly long time, I can totally vouch for how effective this activity is.
Realize that you’re not the enemy, but you're the one with all the power. If you don’t like something, instead of fixating on it and blaming yourself, try and fix it. People often forget that they are able to change aspects of themselves that they don’t like. I used to look in the mirror and beat myself up for my arms; I didn’t like them because they weren’t toned. When I stopped shaming myself for them, and going to the gym and toning them, I automatically started to feel better.
Lastly, learn to be patient with yourself. Self-love isn’t a one day thing. You can’t just wake up one morning and suddenly be completely comfortable with yourself; I mean if you do, that’s absolutely incredible and I’m so jealous of you. But for the rest of us, it’ll take some time. Take it all one-step at a time. Self-love is a journey, and not a race.
