“You pick at your appearance
thinking it humble to hate yourself
thinking it a sin to not.
“But the only time you will be right,” I say,
looking in their eyes,
“is when you love all of who you are.”
-- "Growing Pains"

One of most important life lessons I learned happened in the most unexpected of places - the PE courts of Ekamai International School.

Like any typical Tuesday morning, my students had PE, and I had nothing to work with but four basketballs and a little old referee whistle. So I did what any PE teacher in a missionary's skirt and cardigan would do - I formed four groups, each with one ball, and crossed my fingers that the most energetic children in the world would be tired come time for social studies. Sitting my worn out and sweat-drenched self down, my enhanced peripherals (the kind that comes with the territory of teaching middle school) noticed my student Muse sitting on the bleachers, her face showing zero intent of ever moving from her location.

And that's when it all began.

I told Muse to go join the other kids. Ignoring my order, her jaw dropped in disgust. "I'm not a kid! I'm a teenager," she clarified, sassy as ever. Muse was in fact, twelve years old, so after choking back my laughter I told her to stop wishing to be an age other than her own, and to get her feet on the court. Deflecting my order, she asked how I, a teacher, could possibly know anything about wanting to be a teenager. Again, I held back my laughter, because she had no idea that old Miss Karina was only nineteen. So I replied that like her, I once wanted to be any age but my own. "I know more about this than you think," I told her, pointing to the courts yet again. But when Muse and the girls who had started gathering around her asked me what growing up was really like, I paused.

I wanted to tell them the truth, of the insecurities that start to eat you alive, of the self-doubt, self-loathing, self-sabotage, self-everything but love. But as I stood there, looking at all the curious faces that had stolen my heart, I knew there was nothing I wanted more for them than to never buy into the same nonsense I had clung to growing up. So I told them of the heartache, the friends that come and go, and that above anything else, the most important lesson of all was learning to love themselves. I stumbled on my words, trying to find the best way to convey just how beautiful they all were, inside and out, but even now, no words can do them justice. So again, I pointed to the court, and shooed them away, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

It was then that I realized my heart would break if any of my girls was to ever think the same things I had thought of myself, thinking themselves unworthy of the best that life has to offer. Yet despite my worry, it took me nearly another year to figure out that the lesson I hope had taught them was a lesson I had failed to learn. It’s easy to tell someone you love that they are beautiful and should love themselves. It’s significantly harder to tell it to yourself. But if I would never want my students to feel anything but love towards themselves, for no other reason than that they simply must, what kind of teacher am I, if I don’t believe that of myself? And that’s when I first made the decision to love myself.

It’s time to tell yourself ‘I love you’, period, no conjunction following. You don’t need a reason or explanation for why you love yourself. “I love myself because of my imperfections.” No. “I love myself because I am a fighter.” No. “I love myself because…” Stop, no. There should be no more justification for self-love, it was never needed to begin with.

Somewhere along the way of growing up, we stopped believing in ourselves, in our beauty, in our self-worth and began to believe that self-confidence was equivalent to narcissism. We hear and say 'I love you, you are beautiful, you are smart, you are successful', etc., every day of our lives.

Yet it's taboo to say 'I love me, I am beautiful, I am smart, I am successful', etc. Let's kick that ridiculous notion to the curb and unashamedly use both pronouns.

Of course, I know it won't be easy, trying to love someone that knows your every flaw. I struggle every day to look in the mirror and will myself to genuinely think, I am beautiful, I am worthy, I love me. To be perfectly honest, I don’t believe it most of the time. It turns out years of self-loathing are hard to forget about overnight.

This sort of journey is a marathon, not a sprint. And while that may sound discouraging, when was the last time a marathoner was ever considered a loser? Even the person who crosses the finish line last is a champion for the rest of their lives because they completed something so few have the courage to even try.

So lace up your shoes, even if you hate running. I promise that the hardest part is the first few steps.