This is a public service announcement to all you ladies out there who are like me: Love yourself first. Don’t just tolerate yourself enough to look in the mirror in the morning and think, “eh, good enough.” Don’t shrug your shoulders in masked shame when you are given a genuine compliment because you don’t believe that you deserve it. Learn to love the parts of you that you once hated.
I know you must be questioning what I mean by “first." What I am saying is that you need to love yourself before you’ll ever be able let someone love you. You might go into a relationship thinking you love the person, but if you can’t honestly say that you love yourself too, then you’re lying to yourself. It’s impossible to give love, let alone accept love, when all you do is tolerate yourself. When you enter romantic love with self-esteem the size of a pea, you base all of your good thoughts about yourself on things your partner has said. Whether you want to admit it or not, one day you are going feel so unworthy of this love that you give up and tell them you just can’t anymore and you’ll go back to having nothing. And if they fail you, or fight with you, or chose someone else, you are left lower than you started. Now what do you have?
I get it. Life is full of this pressure to find “your person” and to find them fast. I go to a Christian college and the “ring by spring” expectation might sound like a joke, but if you ask any honest girl on my campus, it is a real day-to-day struggle. You want what you see on "Say Yes to the Dress" or in "The Notebook." You want your fairy-tale. Believe me, I do too…more than I want to admit. It hurts to see your friends find someone two and three times over and here you sit, wondering if you’ll ever be good enough. Not only have I been there, I am there, but I’m not letting that stop me from living my independent life.
Earlier this year, I hit the deepest state of self-hate I have ever been in. I stopped eating because I was afraid that if anyone saw me eat, that they would think that I was eating too much, and I wanted to look like the skinny, beautiful girls. I never left my room except to go to class because I felt like people (especially the men) were comparing me to the other intimidatingly beautiful girls on campus. I wanted to be sick when I looked in the mirror. I never thought I would be that broken girl that you see on TV, but here I was, sad and alone. I knew I couldn’t go on living like this. So, I started therapy.
My therapist saved me from myself in the four months I was seeing her. In my first session, she looked me in the eyes and said, “Heidi, you don’t love anything about yourself do you?” I didn’t know what to say, ashamed of the truth. After a minute or two, I just nodded and cried. She smiled and said, “well, that’s what we are going to fix. Heidi, you are going to leave here loving everything about who you are.” I didn’t believe her, but I sit here today more confident than I have ever been.
The point of my sharing is simply this; I am begging you to love yourself. Romantic love and a fairy-tale marriage is not the goal. Does loving you make that entire process possible? Yes. But, loving yourself is so much more important than any man. Love yourself before you pick a career, make friends and explore college or even hangout with friends. Love yourself before you do anything or make any decision.
From someone who knows, please hear me when I say that you are worthy and beautiful and amazing and (more important than all the others) you are strong. Love yourself for all your imperfections and all your mistakes. Love yourself for the woman you are and be excited to meet the woman you will become.
