Learn To Love The Girl In The Mirror

For 27 years I have been on this planet, and for 26 of those years I struggled with accepting who I am as a person, learning to love all of my flaws and bad habits.

I didn’t even know where to begin when it came to learning how to love me.

For a long time I thought I was fine with the way I was. Sure I wouldn’t leave the house without any make-up on, and definitely had to look at pictures others took just to make sure I looked okay, but I was comfortable with who I was, right?  

Little did I know that loving yourself was so much deeper than just the outer persona people see. It is so much more than I even imagined.

I started talking to a dear friend of mine about all of these subjects — self-awareness, self-acceptance, etc. As we were talking one day she asked me, “Why do you have such low self-esteem?”

I must have looked at her funny, because she got her serious face on and continued, “No, really, you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

I went to sleep that night asking myself that same question. Why do I beat myself up? Why do I think I’m not beautiful enough? The list went on and on.

After that conversation, I started taking all the little things I did and thought into consideration. I started to try to do daily activities differently than I normally would, like not wear make-up all day one time, and make a list of everything I am thankful for. Honestly, I went as far as making a list of all the things I liked about myself — not trying to sound jaded in any way, but I really did that!

Eventually, making these little changes started to help me change the way I thought, made me question my motives, made me step back and look at the bigger picture.

Now this took a little time, of course, it’s not like someone can change overnight, but every single day I continued to grow, and every single day I learned more about myself as a person, and I finally started to love the real me.

I started to not have to wear make-up all the time, and now I only put it on because I enjoy doing so, not because I feel like I need it.

When I work out now, I don’t do it because I think I need to look a certain way, but because I want to be healthier, I want to be stronger, I do it for myself.  

The best part of all of this is that I’ve become comfortable in my own skin and now I accept the person that I am, flaws and all. To me that is the best accomplishment. Being confident in myself has made me such a happier person.

Today society is making it so hard for everyone to feel comfortable with themselves. There are these “standards” that we have about what we should strive to be.

Well, to me these so called standards are bullshit, and need to forgotten about.

All that should matter is that you love yourself, and you know you are worth it. Because we all have something special about us, whether it’s a talent, or passion, or you’re just a caring person in general.

It’s like that saying goes, it’s what is on the inside that counts.

You have to truly love yourself before you can really love anyone else. To me that is true, because you are the only you, and that’s what makes you great.