Is Self-Love Self-Taught?

Self-love. A topic that can be quite touchy for a lot of people and often stirs arguments as different people have different views on it, just like everyone has their very own mindset on every matter.

There's people who don't struggle with loving themselves at all, people who look in the mirror and love the person they see, people who are confident in their choices and the person they have helped them become.
But, on the other side of the coin, there's also people who have a war raging inside their head, who struggle with loving themselves for who they are, who might not even want to look at themselves in the mirror and maybe wish to be another person entirely.
And of course, this is not just a matter of black and white, there's also people who are kind of in the middle, torn between loving who they are and hating certain things about themselves just as much.


I'm going to be real with you, I've never been someone who's looked into the mirror and winked at themselves. I've never been one hundret percent confident about who I am.

There was a point in time when I really disliked, pretty much hated myself. It was around the age of fourteen, maybe fifteen, and I think a lot of teenagers feel the same or a similar way when they're that age, when you're just finding out who you are and completely uncertain about how you're holding up.

I thought about this the other day, then thought about the situation I'm in at this very moment, and I've realised how far I've come when it comes to self-love.
Believe, sometimes I'd still like to punch myself in the face for the things I say or do, and sometimes I can't smile when I look in the mirror, but I feel like that's normal and the times that those things happen are decreasing more and more.

But how did I start making all that progress? Did it all have to do with myself, and myself alone.
No. Obviously, the phrase "self-love" specifies that it's all about loving yourself, the progress to achieve self-love doesn't only have to do with you, but also your environment and all its negative influences.

Think of everything and everyone who makes you feel bad, then think about whether or not you really need those things and people in your life. 99% of the time, they will not be vital for you, and in that case, you need to cut those negative influences out of you life. It might seem harsh, merciless, but it's a big step towards a bettered mental health and will help you see yourself in a different light.

I know that this is a lot of theory and that I will never be able to help you as much as I want to through a computer screen, but I can tell you this.

Self-love is about you and you only, but it's not self-taught, or at least not completely. It starts with you, but it involves other influences from your everyday life that might or might not be in your hands, that you can or cannot control.

If you struggle with loving yourself, severly or not, and feel helpless or alone, know that you're not.
And this is not just an empty phrase, even if you might think so - I did too. There are people out there who you can talk to, if it's not a member of your family or a friend, there are countless help-lines or even online chats where you can talk about your feelings with people who also struggle, or even with experts.

And in the end, I think we're all somewhat struggling, eh? I know that I said there's people who don't seem to have any problem with loving themselves, and while I don't doubt that they exist, I think that the majority is stuck in the gray zone between liking and hating themselves.
And that's okay, so long as your good days outweight the bad ones and you try to get closer to who you are and being okay with that each day.

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