Self Love – A Journey of Growth and Healing

With the flow of the stream called life, we meet different situations, trials, and tribulations under the disguise of people and circumstances. Among them, there are often times when we turn towards those around us, shouldering ourselves upon them and completely depending upon them, maybe simply because we don’t know what else to do. However, only some stay with us. Some deviate away from us.  Some leave us. Some of them leave this world, away from us and everything. Trusting those who are close to us is one, but completely depending upon them is another. Now, after depending upon people, and when they leave us, can we really blame them?

People act and react according to their circumstances. Everyone will have their own matters and affairs to deal with. So, now when the very people we depended upon leave us, we stand clueless, looking around, not knowing what to do. In such situations, the one standing with us will be just ourselves. This is why it’s important to focus on ourselves, improve ourselves, and most importantly, love ourselves.

We all tend to look around us and conclude that those who are around us are doing well. “They have this. They have that.” But we all fail to look at what we have. Without even realizing it, we compare ourselves with others and put ourselves down and down and down. Of course, those who are around us will be doing well, if not the best, because we only see their good side. People only show their best and hide their worst. We all have our hills and valleys, successes and failures, plus and minus. This is life and indeed this is life. An important step in understanding our self-worth is to dive out of the mindset of comparison. The moment when we look at what we have and say “I’m happy for what I have”, and look at what we don’t have and say “I’m going to work on it to achieve it” is when our life will change. Comparison will bring a bad opinion about ourselves and this is the root of self-hate.

We are all walking away from the past to the present, only to walk toward the future. For some of us, the word “past” feels very bitter and painful. It brings out some memories that we don’t like to recall.  We may have been a version of ourselves that we try to hide. It’s natural for us to distance ourselves from our past, to push it away, and to almost think that it never existed.  But what is undeniable is the fact that every little incident that took place in our past, is the reason for our present. Our present self, good or bad, is the result of our past and it’s up to us to perceive this in our own way.

Maybe up to now, we might not have been our best selves. We may really have something that’s not good or something that we don’t like about ourselves. That’s okay. But, it’s not okay to continue to be the same. We can change that. To change that, we have to work on ourselves. Even if we don’t feel worthy to do so, we must believe that we are worthy and work towards it. When we start focusing on ourselves, and on our physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, and financial well-being, we will start to grow and be better. We will start to value ourselves. However, it will take time to do so and what’s important is to keep making progress.

Only if we love ourselves, we can love those around us. When we don’t show kindness and sympathy to ourselves, we will not be able to show the same qualities to those around us. Sometimes we make the mistake of focusing on only those around us, neglecting ourselves. But, the reality is, not everyone will be there with us at every point of our life. We will be the only constant in our life. So, only if we focus on ourselves, work on it, and love it, we will be able to move forward in trying situations, even if there was no one with us. We have to work on our inner voice of ourselves and grow and nurture it such that, when we experience negative phases, that inner voice will keep saying to us, “Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.”

Life is a beautiful gift. We live it, not knowing how to live it, simply because we don’t understand its value. There are so many places left to explore, so many moments left to experience and so many lessons to learn. But we fail to experience these because we shut ourselves away from the world, drowning ourselves in our own sea of sorrow. We need to swim back to the shore. We need to open the closed doors. We need to love ourselves. Then, everything around us starts to look beautiful. We start to feel at peace. We start enjoying life. But, it all begins with us and only us.

Written By:-

Vivujaan Suganthan