Its difficult loving yourself. And that is the truth.
As the human beings that we are and have been programmed as, judging and criticising people is a skill that we have been taught to master in. In our society, it is important to be better than the other, not yourself. The judgemental aunties and the gossip uncles have instilled in us the habit of understanding every move of a person we see and thus compartmentalizing them into the various subcategories that exist in our society. And we encourage it. However there comes a day when we pass a floor length mirror which makes us stop and inspect our body and this 'mechanism' gets ticked in your head and proves to be the worst teaching.
Self-love has often been seen as a moral flaw, akin to vanity and selfishness. The Merriam-Webster dictionary later describes self-love as to "love of self" or "regard for one's own happiness or advantage". Synonyms of this concept are: amour proper, conceit, conceitedness, egotism, and many more. However, throughout the centuries this definition has adopted a more positive connotation through self-love protests, the Hippie era, the new age feminist movement as well as the increase in mental health awareness that promotes self-love.
Speaking from a personal experience and in reference to my previous blog, loving myself was not an easy task. It is not easy to love your ‘Dhai kilo kai thighs’ (half kg thighs) when everyone around you is cruising around in their skinny jeans. It is not an easy task to appreciate your ‘love handles’ being bigger than our actual love life and it is not at all easy to rebuke someone when they point out that you are fat because deep down it kills you. The one thing that I loved about my house as a teenager was the fact that we didn’t have a floor length mirror. And though that may seem a bane to several people it was definitely a boon for me. I never really had to focus on my thighs which were, on a majority of times, a reason for embarrassment and annoyance. There would not be a day when I would not hate the skin I was. I was jealous of my friends who were healthy. I envied my sister because she had lost all her extra weight in college and I was gaining some more every week. I would not sit in social settings because I feared that I would'nt fit in the chair and would continuously feel conscious of my shirt being too high near my back which would cause people to see my ass I would hate going to the mall as I would have to look myself in the eye in those glorious mirrors which would only dampen my mood.
Things get linked to each other very easily and before we know it, we are in a spiral going downwards.
The incidents that could make you dislike or even hate yourself can stem from the smallest and grow into the most major of things. From getting low marks in your exams to not being able to fit into that dress you wanted to being compared to your sister, to not being able to fulfill promises, to being forced on by someone, to leaving a place and lastly to being left behind. Their intensities would differ, but they tend to hit so damn hard that you just don’t know what to say or do after that.
I reached out to the greater mass to know what people do because I would know only how much life has let me. And it touched me, reading their stories.
The first one is from someone too close to my heart. Under a playful girl and the person whom I call my daughter, lied the girl who had learned to love herself. She told me that she had always loved herself for what she was. And yet she had a story to share.
For as long as I can remember, I was an introvert. I loved people, but I was always scared, I never trusted anyone, and I literally hate leaving my house. Though, once I'm out, I'll be a happy person. Most of my life, I made friends, many many friends, but this one particular "friendship" fucked me up pretty bad. I was in 8th grade, new to the concept of puberty, and having crushes, etc. I have always been a tomboy, probably because I was overshadowed by my sister, and it made me feel I'd get more attention if I was like her. This guy, this (then) beautiful, beautiful guy. I fell in "love". I wasn't the confident badass girl infornt of him... I was weird... I couldn't get myself to talk to him, so he was the most difficult person to make friends with, for me. Finally, when I managed that, I realised, I'm not the only one who finds him good looking. I'm not the only one after him, also, he's a fuckboy. He's already dated quite a few girls. Now, the common trait of all these girls was, they were "pretty", "girly" and had short hair. That's it. I started believing I'm so ugly, and he'd never date me, because I'm not girly, I don't wear dresses, I have "bhenji" hair. It crushed me. It was a terrible year of mesery for me. This seems a very tiny thing, but I did start believing that every bit of me was ugly. I wanted to get my hair cut, I tried to fold my skirt at school, so it as shorter, no matter how much I struggled to do these things that were out of my comfort zone, I wasn't pretty enough. (Luckily mom never let me cut my hair more than an inch)
A few months later, it was somewhere around the end of 8th grade, he figured out I liked him, he had just gotten out of a relationship so it would be great to have a rebound maybe? We started dating. I was so happy, he made me feel beautiful, he made me realise I'm not ugly, because he was dating me. The hottest guy in the 8th grade, was dating me.
After this, I left school, and shifted to a new place. We thought, we'll make a long distance work. But, right after I shifted, he never contacted me, he didn't reply to my texts or calls, and I couldn't do anything about it. Six months later, he sent me a long break up text, with some crappy reason. Instead of crying, I started building upon who I am, now.
After this, she made sure that people loved the name Tanishka Bhadauria. She made her hair her identity and realized that there's no point in giving others the button for what you feel about yourself. She started doing things the way she liked them and dressed up the way she was comfortable, and made it a point to love herself, no matter how narcissistic people thought she was. She realized that she deserves to be loved, and stated that 'why would someone else truly love you if you don't truly love yourself.'
Another friend too reached out telling me how when she would feel low she would go stand in front of the mirror every day before college and point out 5 things that she liked about herself. She would blush and smile because even on the worst days she saw the good in herself. Drinking a cup of coffee alone or sleeping early also have always counted as remedies of self-love and she believes that they tend to just spring her spirit in ways she has not understood.
People, most of the times, tend to believe that there really lies no need in loving yourself or going out of your way to treat yourself on some days. As pointed out by this friend, self-love sometimes becomes an item and a term that people use because it is trendy without truly understanding it. When people see you smiling sitting alone, they believe that it must be because of someone or that when you want to be left alone or not talk it is because you are pissed at something. Little do they know that maybe you’re smiling because you’ve worn that new bra today or because you did 30 secs of plank or maybe you want to be alone cause you want to poop in peace!
Nobody knows, and yet nobody leaves an opportunity to guess.
People can do magic. They can make you feel shitty and gorgeous in just one sentence. ‘Beta you look beautiful, if only you had been a little light skinned, but still you're pretty right now.’’ Like aunty why did you say it in the first place? Something of those sorts was also the reason my friend could not love herself. An uncle in the family, would in the subtlest ways prove to her how far she would have to go to be a part of the family. Leaving her out in family sports and favoring her younger and elder siblings only because they ‘looked better’ did not do well for her. She has cried about these things and yet told no one about it because she is not weak. Loving herself has been a struggle since and yet I have not seen someone as confident as her. She can turn heads in the room when she walks just by her aura. And yet she needs to steady herself throughout the day to make sure she doesn’t falter. Cause nobody can know, because she is powerful.
While there are people for whom self-love has been and continues to be a journey, there are some of them who have always loved themselves and that makes me extremely happy. A close friend has always loved herself for her body and her self and appreciates her mom for facilitating it. Another friend has encouraged herself to only do better after one sad math exam failure and another who believes that she is the prettiest little thing on earth and I could not disagree.
Self-love is a phenomenon where you must accept yourself- for the positive and the negative. It’s a journey where you either understand that your negatives are not bad or you work on improving them. Self-love is when you realise that no matter what you wear, you are still radiant. Self-love is knowing that your gender and your sex do not define you but only encompass you. Self-love is accepting that that boy/ girl did not leave you because you weren’t good enough. Self-love is knowing that it’s okay to be broken sometimes. Self-love is acknowledging that not every day is a good day but knowing that the sun will come out again tomorrow. Self-love is knowing that your smile melts the ice in the world every day. Self-love is loving yourself more than anybody could ever.
Currently, I do not understand why our life revolves around pleasing other people even before we have been happy in ourselves. I am in no way pointing out for you to become extremely ignorant to other people or to act like you rule the world, but for you to just accept yourself.
They say that you cannot light someone else's candle if you don’t have a spark.
It’s okay to dislike yourself, healthy even to a certain level. It is only when you have pointed out the squeaky hinges can you go ahead and oil them to function smoothly. I have joined a gym since my last post due to health reason and yet in just under 2 weeks, it makes me feel a lot lighter and fresher. Only when someone pointed it out to me did I realize that maybe I should work on it. Not every criticism is bad, some are given because they care for you and you should never turn your ear on it. Going to the gym has been a good detox. And if someone was to ask me how I love myself, it’s more of a routine where I oil my hair- put a face pack- clean up my surroundings while music blasts on the maximum volume and I sing along and once I’m done I go ahead and have a peaceful long hot shower and then sleep because the silence and serene that is felt is beyond explanation.
Small things, can amount to the biggest developments and we wouldn’t know until we try.
Loving yourself will not happen overnight but can surely happen over a couple of nights. If you believe in it and follow it nothing really is that far. Trust me on this, one morning you will wake up with a smile on your face and just then in the blink of an eye, you shall know ki- ‘’Ache din aa Gaye Hai’’ (The good days are here!) And you will know, maybe it's not all that difficult to love yourself.