Do It For Her: How to Self-Love When You Really Don't Want To

Read Time: 3 Minutes

It feels like a lifetime ago but I once spent a whole year wallowing in the gut-wrenching feeling of guilt. It became on obsession really. One morning, for no reason at all, I woke up feeling like I didn’t deserve to live on this planet. Didn’t deserve love from my friends or family. Didn’t deserve the love of my husband (then fiancé). 

 During that year, it didn’t matter if I was cooking dinner or having a conversation; inside my mind, I was watching a never-ending montage of all the things I’d ever done “wrong” and feeling every ounce of guilt and shame that came with it. It was unbearable.

Looking back from a place of health, I can see in no uncertain terms that I was struggling with mental illness. A form of obsessive-compulsive disorder to be exact. My brain literally became obsessed with my perceived shortcomings and past mistakes to the point that I couldn’t function. This is an incredibly rare experience but, as I can attest, it happens. 

 What isn’t rare, though, is the vague feeling that most of us experience from time to time that we don’t deserve the good things we have in life. That we don’t deserve forgiveness. That we don’t deserve love. 

 We look at our mistakes and say “How could I have been so stupid?”

 We look at where we are in comparison to where others are and say, “How could I be so behind?”

 We look at ourselves in the mirror and think, “How could I be so unlovable?”

 But we aren’t. In our heart of hearts, we know this. From a place of clarity, we know that we are lovable simply because we are alive. The problem is, we aren’t always living from a place of clarity. And, in those moments, when we’re caught up in the lie of unworthiness, it feels so much like the truth. And it brings us so much unnecessary pain.

So, I offer you this.

 During those moments when you’re finding it hard to love yourself, love yourself anyway. And if you can’t do it for yourself because you don’t think you deserve it, then do it for her. Do it for the sweet little girl you once were. The one who looked out at the world with child-like curiosity and who wanted nothing more than to love and be loved. Maybe you haven’t thought about her for a long time, but she’s still very much alive inside of you.

 In those moments when you’re doubting yourself, think back to who you were as a child. Find a picture of yourself if you have one on hand. See yourself as you were before the world got ahold of you and made you feel that you were less than perfect. Before other people made you think that you had to fulfill certain conditions in order to be lovable because that’s what someone told them. 

 Think about the messages you received throughout your life. Maybe you got the message that you need to be pretty or accomplished or pleasing to everyone around you. Or maybe you were told that you should think or act in a very specific way in order to be deemed worthy: speak in a higher octave, wear feminine clothes, put others’ needs before our own. Somewhere along the line you got the idea that your value as a person is contingent on some very specific – and very bullshit – criteria.

 But it’s not.

 You are worthy of love because you are alive. You’re worthy of forgiveness because behind every wrongdoing is an unfulfilled need that you were trying to fulfill in the best way you knew how at the time. You know better now, so let go of the shame. You don’t need it and it’s only holding you back.

 And please remember, if you can’t do it for you, then do it for her. She deserves better.