Learning to Love Myself Again: Overcoming Self-Criticism

Redefining Success and Embracing Imperfection

I am my own biggest critic.

Photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash

When I was a teenager, I couldn’t see my full self-worth.

I thought I needed to be The perfect.

I gave myself ridiculously high expectations for what I thought I needed to achieve to be “good enough.”

The problem with perfection, however, is that it’s unattainable. And whenever I inevitably slipped up and revealed my true imperfect self, I felt like I had somehow failed.

This is no way to live. Because you cannot love yourself and expect perfection at the same time.

Loving yourself is something you knew how to do when you were very small.

Do you remember what it felt like?

Back then, approaching yourself with love came naturally and seamlessly. This is the way you were born. To love is your most innate tendency.

Then, somehow along the way, you grew up and lost the ability to see yourself. You forgot how wonderful and worthy you are. You got in the habit of being harsh and critical of yourself.

This happens to most of us at some point in our lives. It usually takes us several (sometimes painful and confusing) years to get that self-love back.

Then, the love creeps back in. Sometimes it’s an unexpected, pleasant surprise. One day you open your eyes and just know that something has changed within you.

You realize that you don’t have to constantly be in battle with yourself all the time.

You feel ready to embrace your true self–– your wonderful, capable, and worthy true self.

You remember what it feels like to love yourself.

..

I didn’t start treating myself with the love I deserved until I was in my early-twenties.

I slowly began realizing that it was okay to accept every part of me (especially the parts I might find rough and less than perfect).

I became less quick to judge myself when I didn’t meet sky-high expectations. I decided to fully embrace myself as I am.

What’s more, I stopped thinking about everything I wanted to achieve and instead began feeling grateful for everything I already had.

When I began measuring my definition of success, one that is determined by the amount of love in my life. I realized that I no longer had anything to criticize or complain about.

You will find, that the biggest critics are usually the unhappiest of us all. They have an uncanny talent for recognizing the negative within both themselves and others.

So, my advice for you is to do the opposite.

Get good at recognizing the love within you and everything around you.

Happiness is just gratitude and love expressed over and over again, every single day.

If you think you are the only person in the world struggling with self-love at the moment, I want you to know that this is absolutely not the case.

We are experiencing a self-love epidemic right now. So many people have forgotten how to love themselves.

You knew how to love yourself when you were very small. That knowledge is still within you.

Believe it will come back, and it will.

Love always belongs to you.

And you deserve to be happy.

💛

May you spread well-being everywhere you go,

With

Love 💛