Growing Pains

An Alien To The Status Quo

Learning to Love Myself

In conversation with someone recently, I was asked to name a few things that I loved.
After thinking about it for a while, this was my answer….

I love sunsets and sunrises, the smell of the earth after the rain has fallen. Photos of cute puppies and kittens. I love reading, the smell of books, new and old. I love singing in the shower. I think music is life. I love my family, my beautiful friends, just as I’m sure I’ll love my future husband and future kids. Oh and I love God, I love love love God.

I congratulated myself on the answer because it was witty and intelligent….if I do say so myself. I was so proud of that statement, but as I analyzed and replayed the conversation hours later (I tend to do this a lot, because I always feel like I left some things unsaid), I realized that there was one thing, or rather person, that I had left out……Myself.
And that point was emphasized a few days later when I saw this statement on someone’s whatsapp status…

image
Ask yourself

Have you ever read something that has got you taking a good look at your own life?
This simple statement made me reflect on myself and where I lie in all the things that I love and if I’m being brutally honest with myself, I don’t know that I’m way up on that list.
I remember a time when I wasn’t even on the list of things that I loved.
I felt hated and misunderstood, therefore I hated myself. I’d call myself ugly long before any one could, so I wouldn’t feel the sting of the words. My rationale was that if I already knew that I wasn’t beautiful, someone else saying it to me wasn’t going to hurt me… Except it did.
I had a book that I’d written in….you’re an ugly girl…..you’re not good enough…you’re not enough.

This wasn’t helped by memories of adults saying things like, “you shouldn’t smile too much, your teeth are awful.”
Or, “Such an ugly child.”

image
It was only later that I realized that because I saw myself that way, everyone else would see me that way too.
My past circumstances withstanding, I knew that I had to do something before I lost myself. I had to learn how to love myself.
I am now just learning how to accept myself, flaws and all…
It’s hard, it’s extremely hard.
As humans, especially us females, we have a comparison thing going…
I look at what the world has set as its standard of beauty. I am compared or I compare myself to someone who is “prettier” than me or who dresses in a different way than I do, on trend, slay queening, or whatever…
I have no way of possibly attaining this standard.image
My breasts won’t be bigger, my thighs will not have a thigh gap, my skin will always be darker, my teeth will always be small, my eyes, tiny and I’ll be plump…but that’s okay.
That’s fine because I am perfectly imperfect.image
I have come to accept that we are born looking different for a reason. And that we are all beautiful….God doesn’t make mistakes.
So I’m learning to love myself and it’s a deliberate effort. I have to keep reminding myself that there’s no one else like me on earth.
I have to remind myself that I am beautiful and that I am loved.image
1 Peter 3:34
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.image
P. S. This is one thing that I’ll keep talking about because it is journey and I’m no near the end.

19 thoughts on “Learning to Love Myself

  1. Yey Mables!!
    This is brave, and beautiful! You’ll reach out to a lot more people than you know ❀❀
    Good writing, muchos love! 😍

  2. Woowww.. you have really spoken to me Amuron, I bless God for you and your ministry. Need to do a self evaluation test now. But even before I do it… I now know that..
    I AM PERFECTLY IMPERFECT!!!
    And God never makes mistakes.
    May God continue to anoint you and equipment you wisdom Devine wisdom. I love you my sister.. and btw before I forget, you have a generous smile, it speaks volumes about you. Keep smiling.πŸ˜„πŸ˜„

  3. I heart this β™₯β™₯β™₯β™₯
    We are not the same, how do we expect others to love us… I f we cant love ourselves first…
    Sometimes I think if everyone was perfect we would be all perfectly identical….. what an uninteresting world it would be…. our imperfections make us perfectly unique, no one is flawed in the same way
    ~B

  4. This is beautiful!😊😊😊self love is powerful🌟🌟🌟Even the people around will notice it and see that you don’t deserve any less than how much love you show yourself! Good readπŸ˜ƒ

  5. You just reminded of someone on a certain social media group asked a question,” Ladies how do I show my self love? Apart from going to the salon? I was shocked at the answers fellow women gave; babble bath with scented candles, buy an item and so much rubbish(am sorry to say) I think people just prefer materializing everything including God!( that is conversation for another day) This was my comment, ” Sit down and just write yourself a letter telling yourself how much you love love you and meditate upon it! Hihihihihi….and that was followed by WTF REPLIES. Galfriend love yourself with or without the material part

Leave a Reply to Claudine Karangwa IngabireCancel reply

Back to top
%d bloggers like this: