This post is part of our Women’s Health Editorial Series, brought to you by Caduceus Medical Group, Facial Aesthetic Concepts, and Zammex. We hope these pieces provide you with helpful information, encouragement, and insight about your health.
Loving yourself. There seems to be a lot of talk about how we need to love ourselves. And I agree we do! But it’s not that simple.
There are so many factors that go into the ability to love ourselves. Whether it be unreconciled trauma, on-going trauma, illness, relationship struggles, anxiety, and depression – the list could go on and on.
Couple that with the less than mentality – our looks, our home, our children, our husband, our careers all being less than what they should or could be. And the idea of loving yourself becomes an impossibility.
But I want to challenge that. I want loving yourself to be what we all do in spite of all of those things.
Because the thing is – you are the ONLY you there is or there ever will be.
There are a lot of things about myself that I wish I could change. I wish I was a little be taller – like for reals. I told my mom once that the only thing I didn’t want to be when I grew up was short. And here I am – all 5’2″ of me. I wish I were thinner, stronger, tougher.
I also wish I had tried harder to become an actress. I wish my house was cleaner and bigger and I wish I had the nerve to stand up to certain people. I wish a lot of things about myself.
If I look at all of the things I wish I could change or be then I will never be able to love myself.
Loving yourself – is it possible?
Like I said before – I think the key is to forget about all the I wish and what should or could be and to focus on who you actually are.
Daily reminding yourself that you are amazing just for being you. You are unique. If you need to write down affirmations and put them on your mirrors like Charlotte from Sex and the City – do it!
Little by little you can grow to love yourself. It has taken me 37 years, but I can say that I love myself more now than I did in my twenties.
