Hey everyone!
So the other day I finished reading the book ‘Love From Heaven’ by Lorna Byrne, which was such a lovely and informative read. It got me thinking more about self-love and how important it is, of course Lorna’s book also tells us of the importance of loving others but in order to love others we must first love ourselves. I’ve thought about the topic of self-love on and off with a while now. It’s been something I’ve struggled with growing up, and still do at times, so I thought it would be good to write a bit about my journey to loving myself.
Now that I’m sitting here typing I’m not really sure how or where to start but gotta start somewhere.
Growing up I always felt like a bit of an outsider, even though I would always manage to fit in with a group of people and make friends. Some of these friends are still in my life today and I am grateful for each one of them. Regardless growing up I still felt like I was on the outside in a sense, I could never and still can’t quite place why I felt like an outsider, sometimes I still do, but now I’m okay with being on the outside, if anything I prefer it most of the time, not in an isolation type of way but I enjoy being in solitude and working on myself, my thoughts, my ideas and plans. I got bullied and picked on a lot growing up so that more than likely contributed to the “outsider” feeling. I would no longer really call it being an outsider because I don’t really feel like I’m missing out on anything, at this point it’s my own choice to be on the outside. It’s definitely a case of enjoying my own company now where as when I was younger I did not like to be on my own unless I had some sort of distraction like a book or a TV show to binge. I think it was a case of not knowing how to deal with my own thoughts and so on, I constantly needed a distraction so that I didn’t have to feel my feelings, or process my thoughts and emotions.
I had no self-love, I didn’t know how to love myself, where to even start.
When I think about it now I feel like being a child of divorce contributed to my confusion. I don’t really ever remember my parents even being together I think I was 3 when they split. I don’t blame my parents for anything, sometimes things just don’t work out. I didn’t always see it that way though, growing up living with my mam I was quite the difficult child and I used my parents split as ammunition in an argument many times. I never wanted to go to my Dad’s, I don’t really know why, I think maybe because I wouldn’t have many distractions and all my friends were down where my Mam and I lived. My Dad always lived at least 30 to 45 minutes away by car. Don’t get me wrong, when I would go to my Dads’ he would often bring me to the shops or the cinema or do something during the weekend but the rest of the time if we were at the house I had nothing to really distract myself properly, for some reason when I was there even trying to distract myself watching TV didn’t really work even though it did at home at my mam’s. I don’t know why this was the case and why I was so against going to my Dad’s because it really wasn’t bad or anything. I was just more comfortable at home, for me my dad’s house never felt like home. Home was always where mam lived. I’m very close with my mam now, I’d like to say I always was even when I was being a terror as a child but definitely now. I think my main reason for this effecting my ability to self-love was that as a child I saw not only a separation of my parents but also saw it as me being left too. Of course it was more complicated than that but I don’t think any child could ever understand that situation completely or for what it actually is until they are older, and by then the damage is already done. Of course it’s not irreversible damage, we can work on ourselves and work through any past trauma or stagnant emotions and patterns, it might not be easy but it’s very possible and worth it. I would say I’m definitely at peace with it now, but it is still something I would say made my self-love take a hit because at the time it was a big deal for me. I think this particular reason is also why I have commitment issues or it’s a strong contributor at least.
Going back to when I mentioned being bullied. I was always picked on for as long as I can remember, not now or at least if anyone is trying I’m not noticing now because it’s not my issue, but in my childhood and early to mid teen years. You would swear I’m ancient the way I’m talking. It was never physical that I can remember, always mental and emotional. Name-calling, taunting, teasing, trying to make me feel like I was in on some joke only for it to turn out I was the joke and to have what felt like everyone laughing at me. This was a big thing for me, it really knocked what little confidence I had and turned it to dust, and my self-love? that was certainly gone now if it wasn’t already. I didn’t want to go to school or anything because of everything, between the bullying and everything else I had going on and going through my head. It made me dread school in the mornings and all of this made life more difficult for my mam too, last thing we needed was social services to turn up because I refused to go to school and mam could not make me. There will no doubt be at least one person who will say “Oh well you should’ve been made go, she’s the mother and you were the child” and if you can say that then count yourself lucky that you didn’t have the go through what I put mam through when it came to school as well as other things. I could not be made. I think if I didn’t have any of the things going on such as the bullying and so on I probably would’ve loved school because I like to learn. The most of the bullying and stuff was in primary and it set my outlook on schools for good, I carried this to secondary and just hated school because of my past experiences within the school environment, there was a few people now and then in secondary that would pass a comment but I was used to it by then so I guess I knew how to put up with it. I didn’t know how to process and deal with it, but put up with it I could somehow manage. I don’t think I can explain the damage bullying did and the way it made me feel, it was a struggle, I still to this day find myself feeling socially awkward and socially anxious at times even though to others I may not seem it. I am in a much better place now and I can’t remember the last time I would say someone bullied me, I’m much more able to defend myself now, sometimes to the extent of being too defensive which is something I work on changing all the time. I take a lot of things quite personally which I am also working on. I feel this is all because of the bullying in my childhood, I had gotten so used to things being meant in a mean way toward me and I didn’t defend myself then and neither did anybody else, so when I feel like I’m backed into a corner or that someone isn’t hearing what I’m trying to say, even if it’s simply just me misunderstanding the situation, I may go overboard on the defensiveness and take what’s going on personally when that’s not the other persons intention. I work to better myself every day and undo any damage from my past that is still effecting my life today, taking things personally and getting defensive are just two main examples from my life.
It’s only in the last year I found my spirituality, began meditating and practicing mindfulness, using divination tools such as cards and pendulums, and so on. I went through a break-up last year and took it very badly but it triggered something in me and ever since then, since I discovered spirituality and cards through one of my best friends, it’s been a rocky road to say the least but it’s been a road of improving and bettering myself, finding things I never would have thought I would be so passionate about. It has really turned my life around for the better, of course I am still human at the end of the day so it’s not all happiness and rainbows, there’s still days that are difficult and hard but now I can cope with them and pull myself out of that bad place we go on our bad days. This is why I want to and do blog, vlog, and so on about all of this, because it really did change my life and I don’t know if I’d still be here if I hadn’t gone down this path. I used to be on anti-depressants but I came off of them not long into my spiritual journey/awakening because everything I was doing was my medication, the meditation, the cards, mindfulness, it was better than any pharmaceutical drug. The anti-depressants more so made me feel numb as opposed to feel better, I didn’t want to feel numb, I wanted to feel, I just didn’t want to feel horrible all the time. Now I’m not saying if you are taking medications to stop, never make any changes to your medication without consulting your doctor and going over everything with them. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with taking anti-depressants, if you need them and they work for you that is all that matter. Your health, well-being, and happiness is what matters most, we are all different and what works better for me may differ than what works best for you. You yourself are the priority.
I went from someone who had zero confidence and zero love for myself to someone who can happily say I LOVE ME, and exude confidence. I can’t say it was easy to get to where I am now because it wasn’t but anything that’s worth doing never is easy, change is always difficult. There are still times I find myself thinking I’m not good enough or worthy but it happens rarely and I snap myself out of it because I know I am good enough and I am worthy of everything and anything I set my mind to, our ego likes to slip in and try to hinder our progress because it’s scared we won’t need it anymore. Anytime you have a bad thought about yourself or others, that is your ego trying to get in the way of your progress, don’t listen to it, work through/past it, you are not your ego, it’s important to remember that. I can’t remember who posted it but I saw a quote on Instagram before that I loved: “Your ego is not your amigo”. Remember that. Your ego is an asshole and we are all beautiful, capable, amazing, intelligent beings, I could list positive words to describe us forever, so tell your ego where to stick it if it starts to try and bring you down.
I’ve come so far and I’m so proud of myself, and I’m proud of every single person on this planet who is battling anything, or having a difficult time, you will get through this, there was many times I thought I wouldn’t and here I still am happier than ever.
Things still scare me at times, in fact typing this, being so honest and putting this out there about me terrifies me and makes me feel so uncomfortable but I know it is something I have to do, I have to share. Even every time I post a video of me on Instagram it makes me so uncomfortable at first but afterwards I feel proud of myself for doing it. We can’t live our whole life inside our comfort zone or we wouldn’t get anywhere, we need to be pushed and to push ourselves more importantly.
Even though writing this has made me feel uncomfortable it has been so helpful, I realised things about myself that I never knew or saw before just from expressing myself in this post.
Self-love is so important, now that I love myself and have more confidence because of it, I see everything around me differently, nature literally looks more vibrant, my interactions with people are much better, it’s like I’m seeing everything through a completely different lens, I can not begin to explain how having love for myself has changed my life. Meditation, mindfulness, spirituality and so on are the reason for my newfound self-love and love for life. I am so grateful to my family, friends, and just everyone and anyone who’s been supporting me on this journey as well as those who I’ve learnt from and read books by who’ve inspired me. I hope that everyone can take something from this that will help them.
I think I’m all wrote out for this post and I truly hope that everyone finds something they can take from this.
Sending you all lots of love, light, positivity, and healing.
-Josh x