Self-love is very hard to practice and I will tell you why. The world we live in has way too many unrealistic rules. We are expected to be ‘acceptable’ human beings and the definition of acceptable wavers with each community. None of the rules say just be yourself! Growing up I was fed so many rules and not just by my family and society but the media too. It became very difficult to find myself let alone accept who I was.
I am in my late twenties now and I am still learning to love myself, this is why I continue to say the journey of becoming never ends. We become better at it day by day. I am coming from a place where I would tell myself that I am unworthy of good things, a place where I would look in the mirror and imagine that my blood was black symbolizing that I am just a dark unloveable spirit. I held onto my mistakes way longer than I should have because I believed they defined me and my unacceptability.
The biggest challenge for me was loving my body, and it translated to so much hate speech. I was unkind to myself and what this did was that when other people were kind to me it felt unreal. It felt like a lie and I resented the kindness. My lack of self-confidence affected more parts of my life, I doubted that I could excel in anything, I shied away from the things I liked and lost out on opportunities that presented themselves to me. The self-hate dragged me down nice and slow.
At some point, I thought I had finally found the formula to loving myself and this was by making ugly jokes about myself before anybody else did. I somewhat believed that if I beat people to it then it would hurt less, it would give me a place in society on the other end of acceptability. I didn’t realize that I was only feeding all of those words into my conscience to the point where I believed them.
Self-love is more about how you talk to yourself. It is about making the hard decisions that protect your peace. It is about reminding yourself that your worth does not ride on anybody else but you, that you are worthy of the good things that happen to you and for you. The day you find that even in your mistakes you are kind to yourself, then you are well on your way to mastering self-love.
I started to have positive conversations with myself, reminding myself that I am beautiful despite what the world says about me. That my mistakes are my lessons, lessons that make me stronger and wiser. The best of all is learning that the only validation I have ever needed is my very own. I have been practising positive affirmations and this has helped with the parts that I have mentioned above however, I am still learning more about self-love. One of the effects of self-hate that still leaves with me is the inability to accept compliments.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am the queen of sabotaging every compliment that comes my way and I figure that this is because I have not filtered out all the negative thoughts about myself. And that is the one thing I would like to work on in this year, to accept my words and those that are given to me by those around me. I will say thank you and personalize each compliment into an affirmation until the struggle doesn’t live with me anymore. Are you with me?
A CRYSTAL FOR YOUR SELF-LOVE
Rose Quartz
Rose Quartz is a pale pink crystal. It is most commonly associated with love, in all of its forms, although many people tend to focus on the sexual relationship aspect of love when describing the qualities of this crystal. The energy of Rose Quartz vibrates in alignment with the energies of the heart chakra and encourages feelings and expressions of warmth, happiness, compassion, understanding, respect, and emotional health.
WHERE TO BUY IT…
Liyana is an esoteric, wholistic lifestyle brand based in Harare. Currently in stock essential oil-infused Bath salts, succulents, herbs, Epsom salts, crystals: rose quartz, amethyst, tigers eye, Snowflake Obsidian and green fluorite.
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