I think about self-love often lately. These past few months have been an extremely uncomfortable, messy and illuminating time for me, developmentally speaking. And while I can't be sure, being in the middle, I do like to think that I am on a journey to a more peaceful state of being. Even if I wasn't able to see that when I took the first steps. I am starting to realize that I have spent a lifetime fighting a war against worthiness. While there are external factors that certainly exacerbate this, I think it's safe to say that, in the end, these attacks have largely been one sided. Me against myself. And I'm ready to surrender. Cool the hostilities, as it were.
I began going to therapy in September of 2018. I spent five months working with a counselor on the fact that I felt overwhelmed. Just... all of the time. Honestly. That was the whole reason I went to see someone. I was exhausted, drowning, unfulfilled and I didn't know why. After talking to me for approximately thirty seconds, my counselor pointed out that all of these feelings stemmed from my "extreme perfectionism." Now, my need to please and my inability to accept being bad at stuff had started to dawn on me earlier that year, but I'm not sure if perfectionism as a "diagnosis" for my issues was what I was expecting. It's been nine months since I started therapy. And four since I stopped going (for now.) And the pennies are still dropping from this very first session.
Since self-love has been in the forefront of my mind, I'm realizing that setting an impossible standard has been one of the biggest hurdles I've experienced while learning to love myself. Being hard on myself is deeply ingrained into how I operate. If I'm not achieving, producing, constantly improving, working towards something, hustling, etc, I go into an intense emotional spiral which makes me question absolutely every decision I've ever made in my entire life. It also makes me say mean things to myself that really have nothing to do with anything. When I start to spiral, all of a sudden, I'm fat. I'm ugly. My head is too small for my body. I've never done anything worthwhile. I'm a waste of space and I'm stupid and worthless and no one likes me. These thoughts happen whenever I turn on Netflix instead of sit down to write my play. I start hurling these insults if I have a beer and not a soda water. I put myself down every time I lie on the couch rather than a yoga mat. So... fairly often.
This mentality definitely was fucking up my life. (Is still doing so.) I wanted to stop saying these things about myself because I knew it wasn't fair. I knew that. But instead focusing on being kinder, gentler. Allowing myself to just exist, free from the pressure of incessant betterment, without assigning a moral value to every single one of my actions, perfectionism encouraged me to take a different approach. I kept thinking that the way to unlock self-love would to only do the good, healthy, best stuff. If I just stopped doing all of this reprehensible "resting" and "eating enjoyable food" and "recharging my batteries," then loving myself would be easy. I just needed to be the best, most impossible version of myself- one that only made the good choices and did the good things- and then it would be okay to love myself. And it would come easy then. But not before. Never before.
Here's the breaking news on that front: Pobody's Nerfect. Lisa Olivera (THE best instagram follow I have ever made) has blessed all of us messy perfectionists with this beautiful and simple venn diagram:
Right?! I am human. And I am imperfect. Every minute of every day, I am and always will be imperfect. And that's a tough pill to swallow. Accepting that to be human is to be imperfect takes away the barrier I've constructed to stop myself from having to do the hard work of self-love. Because it is hard. It is work. It means I have no excuse anymore. I have to learn to love myself right here and right now. If I wait for perfection to start being kind and gentle and tender.... well, I'm going to die hating myself. And, let's be real, hating oneself is easy. It's habit at this point. It's routine. We have been groomed for self-hatred our entire lives. Now, I'm not going to go on a feminist rant about the beauty industry, or a socio-political rant about how our school system grooms us for anxiety and self-doubt... but I could. Let's just say that self-love is brave. And I'm moving into that boldness and it feels fucking great.
I am trying to accept myself fully and completely as I am in any given moment; trying hard to believe that I am truly worthy, right now, just as I am. I'm not always successful. Can't be, because I'm not perfect. See above. But another lesson I've learned, is more than one thing can be true at the same time. I can be working towards self-acceptance and also be struggling with it. I can falter on a path, take a step backwards, and also still be moving forwards. And like I've said, it's hard. Sometimes self-love seems Sisyphean. Maybe it is. Unlearning a lifetime of hurt and pressure and toxic behaviour is not an easy thing. I suppose in someways, it's not even a "thing" at all. It may, in fact, be a very large emotional boulder that we are constantly pushing up a metaphorical hill for all eternity. I do have hope that, unlike Sisyphus, our burden may wear down as we ascend. Become a bit smaller, easier, kinder on us and on our bodies. And maybe we don't have to be alone in bearing it. Perhaps when we take a moment to share, reach out, understand, be vulnerable and hold space for others to be vulnerable, we can lessen the burden of doubt, unworthiness and self-hatred. And that's why I've shared this with you today. In the spirit of connection. In the hopes that maybe one person out there will read these words and feel a little more able to choose self-love today and a little less alone with that big rock pressing into her palms. If nothing else, the writing of it helped me untangle my brain a little.
So, thank you.
And remember, you are so, so incredibly worthy of love. Right now.
Good luck. <3
I began going to therapy in September of 2018. I spent five months working with a counselor on the fact that I felt overwhelmed. Just... all of the time. Honestly. That was the whole reason I went to see someone. I was exhausted, drowning, unfulfilled and I didn't know why. After talking to me for approximately thirty seconds, my counselor pointed out that all of these feelings stemmed from my "extreme perfectionism." Now, my need to please and my inability to accept being bad at stuff had started to dawn on me earlier that year, but I'm not sure if perfectionism as a "diagnosis" for my issues was what I was expecting. It's been nine months since I started therapy. And four since I stopped going (for now.) And the pennies are still dropping from this very first session.
Since self-love has been in the forefront of my mind, I'm realizing that setting an impossible standard has been one of the biggest hurdles I've experienced while learning to love myself. Being hard on myself is deeply ingrained into how I operate. If I'm not achieving, producing, constantly improving, working towards something, hustling, etc, I go into an intense emotional spiral which makes me question absolutely every decision I've ever made in my entire life. It also makes me say mean things to myself that really have nothing to do with anything. When I start to spiral, all of a sudden, I'm fat. I'm ugly. My head is too small for my body. I've never done anything worthwhile. I'm a waste of space and I'm stupid and worthless and no one likes me. These thoughts happen whenever I turn on Netflix instead of sit down to write my play. I start hurling these insults if I have a beer and not a soda water. I put myself down every time I lie on the couch rather than a yoga mat. So... fairly often.
This mentality definitely was fucking up my life. (Is still doing so.) I wanted to stop saying these things about myself because I knew it wasn't fair. I knew that. But instead focusing on being kinder, gentler. Allowing myself to just exist, free from the pressure of incessant betterment, without assigning a moral value to every single one of my actions, perfectionism encouraged me to take a different approach. I kept thinking that the way to unlock self-love would to only do the good, healthy, best stuff. If I just stopped doing all of this reprehensible "resting" and "eating enjoyable food" and "recharging my batteries," then loving myself would be easy. I just needed to be the best, most impossible version of myself- one that only made the good choices and did the good things- and then it would be okay to love myself. And it would come easy then. But not before. Never before.
Here's the breaking news on that front: Pobody's Nerfect. Lisa Olivera (THE best instagram follow I have ever made) has blessed all of us messy perfectionists with this beautiful and simple venn diagram:
Right?! I am human. And I am imperfect. Every minute of every day, I am and always will be imperfect. And that's a tough pill to swallow. Accepting that to be human is to be imperfect takes away the barrier I've constructed to stop myself from having to do the hard work of self-love. Because it is hard. It is work. It means I have no excuse anymore. I have to learn to love myself right here and right now. If I wait for perfection to start being kind and gentle and tender.... well, I'm going to die hating myself. And, let's be real, hating oneself is easy. It's habit at this point. It's routine. We have been groomed for self-hatred our entire lives. Now, I'm not going to go on a feminist rant about the beauty industry, or a socio-political rant about how our school system grooms us for anxiety and self-doubt... but I could. Let's just say that self-love is brave. And I'm moving into that boldness and it feels fucking great.
I am trying to accept myself fully and completely as I am in any given moment; trying hard to believe that I am truly worthy, right now, just as I am. I'm not always successful. Can't be, because I'm not perfect. See above. But another lesson I've learned, is more than one thing can be true at the same time. I can be working towards self-acceptance and also be struggling with it. I can falter on a path, take a step backwards, and also still be moving forwards. And like I've said, it's hard. Sometimes self-love seems Sisyphean. Maybe it is. Unlearning a lifetime of hurt and pressure and toxic behaviour is not an easy thing. I suppose in someways, it's not even a "thing" at all. It may, in fact, be a very large emotional boulder that we are constantly pushing up a metaphorical hill for all eternity. I do have hope that, unlike Sisyphus, our burden may wear down as we ascend. Become a bit smaller, easier, kinder on us and on our bodies. And maybe we don't have to be alone in bearing it. Perhaps when we take a moment to share, reach out, understand, be vulnerable and hold space for others to be vulnerable, we can lessen the burden of doubt, unworthiness and self-hatred. And that's why I've shared this with you today. In the spirit of connection. In the hopes that maybe one person out there will read these words and feel a little more able to choose self-love today and a little less alone with that big rock pressing into her palms. If nothing else, the writing of it helped me untangle my brain a little.
So, thank you.
And remember, you are so, so incredibly worthy of love. Right now.
Good luck. <3
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