Ep. 42 Are Your Scared to Love Yourself?
Are you scared to love yourself?
That may seem like a ridiculous question until you start to think about it.
When you love someone, you spend time getting to know them. You spend time with them.
The same is true when learning to love yourself.
It is often said that facing oneself is one of the most terrifying things. People will often do anything to avoid that happening. I was that way in college.
My first job out of college was with a non-profit and I spent the vast majority of my time pouring into it. One of the reasons was that the more I focused on other people, the less I focused on myself - which is what I wanted because I was terrified to face myself.
I did not like myself. If you look at some of my journals from when I was younger, the things I would say to myself were horrible. Instead of facing myself, I distracted myself from myself.
But you know, when you're in a dark room, and how your mind can play tricks on you? You may think something is scary in there, but when you turn on the lights, you realize it was a chair. The same is true with facing ourselves. When you are in the dark as to who you are, your mind will play tricks on you, especially the longer and longer you spend time not facing yourself.
Misconceptions build up all these lies and negative things that you think are true, but you haven't really spent time with yourself to see that they aren't true. When you are in the dark as to who you are, your mind may play tricks on you. But facing yourself is turning on the light to the truth.
To love someone you have to see them. To love yourself, you have to see yourself.
Depending on your life choices and circumstances, facing yourself may involve no longer running from some things you have tried to escape. A hard part about loving yourself may be doing what is best for yourself in the long run. Perhaps this is the season to take the hard step of facing yourself.
Challenge: Spend time with yourself this week for no less than five minutes. Sit in silence, journal, talk to yourself, or just check in on how you're doing. Whatever method you choose, use it to focus is on yourself. That five minutes may end up feeling like the longest five minutes in the world but try it. Then keep trying it so it becomes a practice to get to know yourself.