Becoming the love of our life - Part-2

“Fall in love with your scars” is advice we often keep hearing. Here, we are not the scars; we have them. And so, we love ourselves ‘with’ the scars. Again, the scars didn’t make us who we are. We did! 

Having discussed what is and is not self-love in length, we now discuss how we come to love ourselves. Here’s the link to part 1, in case you missed it: Becoming the love of our life - 1

If only we had instant shots for self-love. Or maybe not. Because consistency matters, it will happen slowly and gradually. We’ll know when we get there :)

How we traverse through this journey is completely up to us. No two journeys are identical. However, there are a few pointers that would help us to make it a smooth one.

• Strike a balance between being ourselves and working on ourselves. These two thoughts aren’t really contradictory because we do not change the parts; we only change the whole. For example, we do not alter the nose we were born with but how we look at it. Moreover, self-love without self-growth may be difficult to last.

• Make efforts to work on each domain of the ‘self,’ such as physical, intellectual, social, emotional, spiritual, etc. How comfortable are we with our bodies? Are we exercising our intellect in the right direction? Are we pushing away any feelings? How confident are we in managing our personal connections? Do we know what our life’s calling is? The answer to these questions and many others could be a good place to start with.

• Ask ourselves, “Is this making me happy?” when we feel compelled to yell at the figure staring through the mirror. What’s the point in fighting against ourselves if we are hurting? At the same time, we needn’t turn a deaf ear to threatening information to protect the inner child within. We can take in the information, process it objectively while staying mindful about our feelings throughout. Most importantly, we continue to love ourselves even when it’s hard to... ‘at our darkest’. That too, without searching for reasons to do so even though there could be myriad reasons not to do so.

• Hold ourselves gently when we catch ourselves spiraling, however long we need to. For instance, after the alarm goes, sometimes we don’t feel like getting up. However, even if we don’t know when we do know, we’ll wake up from our bed eventually. Likewise, we wait. We could make any adjustments around to get ourselves to feel more comfortable.

• Remove the “If, then” clause from our dictionary. Do we want to get ourselves an ice cream as a reward for success? Very well, let’s get ourselves one anyway. We still deserve one for our efforts. Tough love doesn’t really work. It isn't enjoyable. Rather, let’s appreciate ourselves and savor that moment.

• Take out time for doing things that bring out the best in us. Connecting with people and listening to them is mine; what’s yours? Doing this is not just for self-validation but also to experience a sense of joy within. And yes, we ought to embrace our lesser strengths and work on them too.

• Spend time with ourselves, probably doing a solitary activity or simply sitting by the window. [Spending alone time with technology doesn’t count :-P] Remember how we used to play by ourselves when we were kids? To each of us, we are ‘the most interesting. When we get past the initial awkwardness, we can wander peacefully in our mind castles.

Now, how do we know if we come from a place of self-love? If someone were to mistakenly point the finger at us, needless for an explanation, we could say undoubtedly, “Oh no; I know I am awesome!”