I’ve been doing everything right: I meditated, read insightful books, took a hot bath, spent time with people that love me, cooked my favorite food, got a massage and relaxed on my extra-comfortable couch. I took good care of myself. So why didn’t it feel right?
Love yourself, everyone says. Love yourself first. The mantra to get anything good in life, that more and more feels just like another item on the list: “Love yourself, check!” But what does that mean, really?
Blogs, posts, pages of books and people’s words are sprinkled with the concept of self-love. But if you look deeper it seems all about “getting somewhere” and “getting something”, shaping yourself into some kind of healed goddess that doesn’t quiver anymore in the face of anything and walks through life with grace and control, self-assured and happy no matter what. But is that self-love? Is that even possible?
In my personal journey, I found out that I mistakenly thought I was taking care of myself, but I was not. I was trying to do everything “right”, but the results weren’t lasting and that particular sense of lack within me didn’t get replenished. In all this rightness there was something very wrong.
“WE SHOULD START LIVING WITHOUT THE FEAR OF DISTURBING OTHERS” (F. ROVERSI)
I wasn’t taking care of myself. When that hit me, it scared me and triggered an ancient pain. I was also tired of trying to be better, to get better, to handle it better, to find faults to correct in whatever I did, and to worry about unsettling others with the expression of my needs. My needs: when did I start to think they were not so important? What illusory super-version of myself was I trying to embody? I realized that I was living my life overthinking, walking on eggshells, only to suddenly burst out, while cultivating a deep inner wish to disappear from everything and everyone, to run away where no one knew me and be free. Free from what? From the cage I was building for myself while thinking I was liberating me.
The pressure I was putting on myself was unsustainable. I developed a profound sense of being intrinsically wrong, because I had to be so careful how I behaved. My inner compass lost his north and my mind was obsessing over the same thoughts over and over again. What was worse, this time I didn’t know how to “fix it”. But that was exactly the point and I finally saw it.
THERE’S NOTHING TO “FIX”
I can’t even remember when I started to try to “fix” myself. Since then, I have been working so hard on this, that I lost sight of me in the process. I wasn’t present as much as I was tending to an ideal super-version of me, leaving my actual self – the only self that really exists – rather beaten and lonely. I tried so hard to be different, to gain balance and moderation, to tame my emotions and to manage my sensitivity, but I had not realized that the process to get there wasn’t rooted in the love for myself as I was, but in the longing and aspiration for this unattainable self I one day would be. To the real, actual me I was giving an extremely hard time. A time made of judgements, criticism, blame, even when I was taking a hot bath or relaxing in my home. How could she ever evolve into a more mature being receiving such treatment? Her wounds were always open by the ruthless inner dialogue I treated her to, day in and day out.
When the suffering got too intense and I couldn’t blame anyone else for it – even if I tried – all my internal structures crumbled down, I finally cracked, and a space opened up. In that space I could breathe; in that space I gained sight of me again. As I looked at myself, I saw my strenuous effort to be perfect and at the same time the resistance to that very quest for perfection, because deep down I knew it was not a fair asking. I was fighting against myself twice. I saw me tired and lonely and the only thing I wanted to do was to give myself the most tender, enveloping embrace full of all the love and the apologies that were long due.
DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR BEING YOU WHERE YOU ARE NOW
That helped me realize I don’t have to apologize for being as I am, where I am on my journey. This ideal future self doesn’t exist; the only one that exists is the one I am building day after day, with every little choice I make. First and foremost, by choosing to love me every day as I am now, not as I will be, not as I should be.
It helped me realize that true self-love has little to do with pampering, but a lot to do with listening and accepting, with forgiveness and patience. It’s about learning to give ourselves time and space when we don’t have answers, when we feel lost, when we make mistakes because we are experimenting with life and are trying to open up a little more to it. It’s about learning to make friends with our fears and self-doubt, so to filter their message and move forward regardless, not having them lead our life. It’s about learning to accept our needs and desires, and not to be scared to express them.
I understood that if I want to live fully open to life, I will need to take risks, because there’s no way to know how things will go before experiencing them. That If I want to love with all my heart, I may be wounded again, but there’s no other way I would want to love. And when I fall, I want to be there to pick me up. If I am in pain, I want to be there to hold me.
ACCEPTING WHO YOU ARE IN THE PRESENT OPENS YOU UP TO THE FUTURE
What I really missed was to feel that I trusted myself. Trusting that we can take care of ourselves helps us get closer to others, opens us up to new experiences and to being less scared while doing so. Fear comes from the feeling of losing ourselves into something that may hurt us somehow, but if we know that we are in touch with our soul and are listening to the messages of our heart, we are always ready to catch ourselves when we go too far, and course correct.
We need self-love to open up to life, not to withdraw from life. We need it to be courageous and expand our heart, not to close it. When you are your best friend you can risk more, be more flexible; you can venture out of your comfort zone and grow because you’re going to have your back when challenging times arise. If you know you have a parachute, you may think of jumping off a plane; if you know you can trust your wings, you may want to try to fly.
Personally, I still aspire at evolving into an always more mature, grounded, open, loving being, but who I am today, in this exact moment, it’s all I have, and I am learning to love her, as she is.