For the longest time in my life, I hated myself. sad, but it really was true, I hated the way I looked, I hated the way I dressed, I hated the way I interacted with people. I literally hated everything about myself. I was my own enemy. I brought myself down every single day. No, I wasn't depressed or anything else of that sort, that's just the way I felt about myself at that time. I had really low self-esteem and me, bringing myself down made it worse. This was all throughout middle school and high school.
That was until I went into my first year of college where all of this changed. College is a magical place where people don't care about what you look like, what you wear, etc. All they care about it is how fast you walk down the hallway. It wasn't until then where I started to love myself because in college you have to put yourself first in order to succeed. This all begins with loving who you are first.
I started to take care of myself whether that be physical, mentally, or emotionally. I began to look more closely at how my body reacted to things, what it needed, and I began to feel like myself again. I began to replace the words that I've told myself over the years and used motivating mantras. I began to motivate myself to succeed in school because I knew I could do it. I told myself that I could do it. I had a solid 3.0 GPA in high school and by the time I finished my second semester in college, I had a 3.7 GPA and was inducted into an honor society. This all happened because I told myself every day that I could do, I could work hard and succeed.
My love for myself grew, even more, when I went to Costa Rica. I loved myself for forcing myself to go on the trip. I loved myself for getting out of my comfort zone and having fun. I saw myself in a different light and I loved it. It sounds weird just typing about this, but it truly did grow.
Self-love is a topic that isn't really talked about. Society deems it as "narcissist" or "selfish" but I see it as absolutely necessary to go about life. Nobody else is going to worry about you so you have to start worrying about yourself. You can be your own worst enemy, but you can be your own cheerleader. In such a short space of time, I managed to change my mindset of how I saw myself and if I could do it, then you can do it too.
It's really up to you to love yourself first before anyone else because how could you learn love someone else if you don't love yourself?
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