I wish loving yourself was a simple step by step guide that I could describe 1, 2, 3 and done. My truth is that it is a lifelong process that takes daily work. I’m browsing through messages from literally everywhere telling me to hate myself. I refuse to dislike myself and reject hate messages that activate my PTSD. I will live a life of love, pleasure and peace. I hope that by sharing my experience, others can understand and maybe find something useful in my lyrics.
I’m sure you’ve seen sayings and quotes proclaiming that you should love yourself and yourself! It was off-putting to me because I didn’t even love myself (mind the years of abusive people destroying me) let alone have love for myself. I had to take baby steps and start with some self-awareness before I found a way to love myself.
I took a realistic look at how I talked to myself. Whether we know it or not, we have a relationship with ourselves. What did I tell myself when good, bad or neutral things happened? How did those things I was telling myself make me feel? Was I reciting the same hurtful things past abusers have said? Self-awareness helped me pay attention in the moment to how I was talking to myself. It was not good. In fact, much of the incorrect rhetoric the abusive people said to me permeated my personal speech to the point that I was in a really bad spot.
One step at a time and I always practice this is to be careful what I say to myself. I created what I like to think of as an inner counselor that helps me get out of dark thoughts and negative feelings about myself. I ventilate and respond, comfort and calm myself. The conversation is about compassion and kindness. I used to berate myself and feel shitty for even existing. Things have changed a lot but I still have times when I’m harder on myself. As I mentioned above, it is a process that requires daily work.
After a while of training myself to catch the negative self-talk and mean lines of thought and helping me get through those times and have better ones, it just got easier. Instead of fighting with myself, I listen with compassion. Instead of a pile of negative thoughts overwhelming me and triggering more intense PTSD symptoms, I’m usually able to redirect my mind and comfort myself. The pain is still there but it’s easier to deal with when I practice loving myself.
So what else did I do to start the process of loving myself? Acts of kindness (small things on the 1st), taking care of my health, allowing anger, sadness and even happiness that I felt I was not allowed to express or feel before. I lived a certain way while I was abused and continued the same way in survival mode. I had to do certain things to survive and now I’m trying to undo them. It’s hard, it hurts, and it sucks at cactus balls. I will continue.
The acceptance was and is huge for me. I don’t mean accept and not nothing. I am working on accepting the way things are right now and continuing to work towards a calmer and more peaceful inner life. By accepting myself as I am, I have also lowered many unrealistic expectations. I say unrealistic because my expectations were for a human being who has not experienced trauma. I judged myself harshly. In fact, I have accomplished a lot in my life. I have pros and cons but I think I’m making the most of things.
Patience is also huge. Since I was so tough, I had little patience for myself. I was expecting changes right now instead of the reality that it takes time and small increments of change/healing are needed. Large drastic changes cause dysregulation and can be painful. It’s ok to be a little shitty about something until I figure it out. For me, the small changes and the incremental work of daily practice is what really made the biggest difference. Of course, I want it right now, damn it, but I understand that I realize it. It’s like building blocks, one day at a time. I think that goes for a lot of things in life, not just healing trauma.
It may not be possible to love each other for a long time. It took me years. Healing was a much slower process than I liked or ever realized. This is my biggest and most difficult project of all time. If you’ve made it this far down the page, thanks for reading. That’s all I have to say for now. Hope this was helpful to you in some way. It helps me to write about how I feel and what I do to heal.
