How To Fall In Love With Yourself
Stand
naked in front of a mirror for a long time, under unflattering light if
possible. Trace the rises and falls of the little ripples on your skin — the
scars, the dimples, the cellulite — and think about how much you try to hide
these things in your day-to-day. Wonder why you hate them so much, and if this
hate stems from somewhere within yourself, or as a result of being told all
your life that it’s wrong to have physical flaws. Wonder what you would think
of your body if you never looked at a magazine, if you never thought about
celebrities and models, if you never had to wonder where someone would rate you
on a scale of 10. Look at yourself until the initial recoil softens, and you
can consider your features in a more forgiving frame of mind.
Listen to the music which makes you want to both sob and
dance with uninhibited joy, and allow yourself to repeat any song you want as
many times as your heart desires. Think of the person you are when you have
your favorite song in your headphones and are walking down a street you feel
you own completely, swaying your hips and smiling for no good reason — remember
how many things you love about yourself during those moments, how much you are
willing to forgive in yourself, how confident you are for no good reason. Try
to think of confidence as a gift you give yourself when you need it, instead of
something you have to siphon from every unreliable source in your life. Dance
because the music makes you remember how much you love yourself, not because it
allows you to forget the fact that you don’t.
Write a list of all the things you like about yourself, even
if you think it’s a self-indulgent and narcissistic activity. Start as early as
you like in your life — put down that time you won a trophy playing little
league soccer when you were eight and then got an extra-large shake at the DQ
on the way home, and don’t feel silly for remembering it. Try to understand how
many sources in your life happiness can come from, how many things you could be
proud of if you chose to. Ask yourself why you so tightly limit the things you
take pride in, why you set your own hurdles for happiness and fulfillment so
much higher than you do with anyone else in your life. Let your list go on for
pages and pages if you want it to.
Touch and care for yourself with the attention and the
patience that you would someone you loved more than life itself. Rub lotion in
small circles on your elbows and hands when it is cold and your skin is dry and
cracked. Make soup for yourself when your nose is running and curl up, with
your favorite movie, in a pile of expertly-stacked pillows. Light a few candles
and let their glow flicker against your body. Admire how gentle they are, how
delicately their warmth touches you — wonder why you don’t let yourself do the
same. Soak your feet in warm water at the end of a long day, until they have
forgiven you for walking on them for so long without so much as a “thank you.”
Listen to your body when it aches to be touched, and don’t be afraid to give it
every orgasm that you may have been too ashamed to ask for in someone else’s
bed.
Be patient with yourself, and don’t worry if a switch doesn't flip in you which abruptly takes you from “crippling self-doubt” to
“uncompromising self-love.” Allow yourself all the trepidation and clumsy,
uneven infatuation that you would with a promising stranger. Try only to be
kinder, to be softer, and to remember all of the things within you which are
worth loving. Listen to the voice in the back of your head which tells you, as
much out of sadness as anger, “You are ugly. You are stupid. You are boring.”
Give it the fleeting moment of attention it so craves, and then remind it,
“Even if that were true, I’d still be worth loving.
xxx
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