Self-love and why it’s so hard

Social media has made us believe that self love is this fluffy and glamorous concept.

If you have really been working on loving yourself, then you will know that is is bullshit. Self love is deeper than this and it is hard work. It involves a huge amount of self compassion and self esteem. It’s about digging deep into your shadow side, your traumas, your fears, your insecurities, and still not hating yourself. It is about having your own back when things seem to be falling apart and being kind to yourself without the need for external validation. It is about loving yourself unconditionally the way we talk about loving our parents/kids/friends.

It is so f*cking hard.

But you know what’s harder? Just ‘getting through’ every day frustrated, angry, hopeless and treating yourself like the victim you’re not.

Although it’s not glamorous, self-love really is important. I am not an expert on self-love, in fact, if you ask me how you practice it I can’t really tell you because it’s something I have had to learn the importance of the hard way and will always continue to work on. This in its essence is self love - I may not have nailed it but it’s a working progress and that’s enough.

If I was to give any advice, it would be to detach the concept of self-love from what social media makes us believe that it is and do the hard stuff. The hard stuff isn’t pretty but it’s worth-it. It’s worth-it for your happiness, your relationships, your career, your health and for sure, your hormones.

So, this Valentines Day, I celebrate you. I celebrate you trying and doing your best every single day and I hope you celeberate you too.