“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.”
– Lucille Ball
While yes it’s true the quote mentioned above would make a great addition to your Pinterest board full of quotes, it’s a hell of a lot harder to follow through with. If I lived by every quote that has led me to feel 30 seconds of inspiration while scrolling aimlessly through my news feed during class I would have no problems at all.
But I don’t do that and neither do any of you. The truth of the matter is loving yourself isn’t always easy. If you struggle with self esteem you can’t read a few words and automatically put all of your insecurities aside and feel that overwhelming love for your mind and body that you know you should.
First and foremost, reading this article isn’t going to magically change the way you feel. It’s not going to give you a whole new perspective on life; insecurities don’t ever really go away, they just get easier to manage overtime.
The point of this article is to instill the idea to whomever may be reading this that you are not alone, that you aren’t the only one who is constantly questioning your self worth. I’ve been there, I’m still there, and I will probably be there for a long time. It’s to give you a few seconds of peace during your busy life, a few seconds in which that overwhelming feeling of pressure might be relieved.
To those reading this right now I have 3 things to say to you:
You are important.
I know that some days it feels like it doesn’t matter if you share that idea you’ve been thinking about for the past month because it’s probably stupid anyway. It’s not stupid, and it does matter. What really doesn’t matter is how you got to the point you are at right now. All that matters is that somehow along the way you began to feel as if what you have to say doesn’t deserve to be heard. You are important, your thoughts, your voice, your feelings, it’s all important.
Start surrounding yourself with good people.
The people you dedicate the majority of your time to shouldn’t make you feel inferior. Don’t settle for people who leave your life empty. You should be around people who see the good parts of you when you can’t. And don’t you dare spend time with people who put you down in order to make themselves feel superior, you deserve better than that.
It’s the little things.
Like I said earlier, It’s nearly impossible to abolish every bad feeling that you have for yourself. However, you can cultivate feelings of happiness or moments you feel confident a bit easier. If you like the way you look in something don’t take a picture. I say this because a few days later if you’re not feeling as brave you might look back and pick yourself a part and that feeling of confidence will be abolished. Instead write down how you feel when wearing it, beautiful, confident, happy. Keep a log of times that you have those feelings and look back on it when those insecurities come creeping back up.
There’s no easy fix for insecurity issues, the only way to deal with them is to focus on what you can control. So maybe you can’t fall in love with yourself the way those stupid Pinterest quotes say you should, so what. We do what we can, when we can, and how we can.
And that’s enough. You’re enough.
