By Armon Anderson
5 min read
What does it really mean to love yourself in a world that constantly tells you, you have to look a certain way, act a certain way and only feel things behind closed doors because “it makes people uncomfortable”?
The first time I looked up the term self love I was directed to a Meridian dictionary definition that equated self love with narcissism. I looked blankly at that computer screen for a long time.
Here I was trying to learn what the word love meant as it related to my relationship with my inner being, and in cold twelve point font clear in black and white, I was being told that even looking up what self love was, meant I had narcissistic tendencies? Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.
Thankfully this was several years ago and self love has become a topic of greater awareness as the days gave way to months and years. People now talk about it daily on social media, people attend retreats on how to love oneself, people read books and join online workshops on this topic, but one question that still remains is how did we get here?
How did we as a human race become so disconnected we learned to love everything but what allows us to experience this thing we call life?
When did our minds and hearts become something we had to learn to love? And how can we retrace our footsteps and undo what has left many of us wondering: what is self love, and how do I get it?
In my opinion, what it comes down to is that we didn’t unlearn how to love ourselves, rather we have been taught and trained to hide vulnerability, we have learned to suppress emotions that are deemed “socially unacceptable” and many of us have gotten so good at hiding these things, we have lost the ability to tap into them, even when we are alone with ourselves.
Self love can be taught, yes, but not unless we first learn to allow and accept vulnerability as power in our lives, rather than something to hide from the world around us. Self love is not about being perfect, it’s not even about being great, no, self love occurs when you can look yourself dead in the eyes and choose to see all your so-called flaws and faults and still see that you are perfectly imperfect and worthy of love and prosperity.
Listen, you don’t need to learn to love yourself, you were born with love inside of you. You just need to learn to allow yourself to love yourself for all that you are. You do not have to be someone else, there are enough someone else’s in this world, you are here on this planet to be you, and the truth is the world needs more of you and less of whoever you are trying to be.
Your self love starts when you start to believe you are worthy, you are enough, and you have purpose.
Why do you think you have a unique fingerprint? It’s to leave your unique mark on this earth, your heart and soul are so special and so unique to you that it is a disservice to the world for you to hide them because you have been taught to your whole life.
Have the courage to be vulnerable and choose to be exactly who you are moment to moment, it may not always be pretty but it’s honest, and if we could all learn to be a little more honest and a little less consumed with the judgments that may be passed, everyone could exist in a place of love.
Be the example, choose yourself, and more than anything give yourself permission to let all that you are be enough.
Armon Anderson aka Mr Self Love is a self love expert. Through his philosophy, he demonstrates that self love is the cure to self hate…the beginning of one’s self healing, and end to one’s self destruction. He uses these fundamental strategies to help his clients bridge the gap from where they are, to where they want to be. Follow Armon on instagram @Mrselflove for more tips, tricks and thoughtful tips.
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