Self-love defined

Self-love is not about loving your best self. It is very little about loving yourself at your ideal weight, with a fulfilling job, a beautifully curated life and a happy relationship.

It is more about loving the parts of you that you have been running away from. The parts of you that you hide, the corners that are too dark to peep into. Its about the day you failed in school, or when a teacher humiliated you in front of your batch, its the trauma of an abusive childhood, or the hurt of giving up your true passion, its about the day you found out you were being cheated on, or the days you cried because of bullies, its your first unrequited love or the day you lost a loved one to death.

It’s about digging deep and finding these parts, the parts that if ignored become such a deeply rooted wound that corrodes us from within. It’s about facing them, accepting them, embracing them and loving them. It’s about setting high standards of yourself and holding yourself accountable first.

Our identity is not only what we are today, but also the sum of the little moments we’ve lived for our entire life. Hiding something and healing something are not the same thing. We cannot truly love ourselves until we come face to face with these suppressed realities, and honor our experiences with kindness and compassion, even the difficult ones, especially the difficult ones. If we want to move forward to our future, we need to stop denying our past. 

Self-love is not as cutesy as Instagram makes it look like. But when you go through the process and slowly see yourself smiling at the mirror, laughing aloud, spending peaceful moments alone, dancing in your room, being appreciative of your life, kinder to yourself and grateful of this world, you will know that you are now a fierce force of love.
And you will know that the journey is worth it.