I’m not joking.

It can be seriously effed up.

 

Here’s a very important note to remember.  Loving yourself doesn’t guarantee that you will be loved right back.  How’s that for a curveball?

Indeed.  Self love?

IT'S A TRICKY TERRAIN, MY FRIEND

We can shout it out from the mountain tops.  I Love my curves!  I Love my crazy!  I Love my attitude!  I love everything unique and different about me that makes me, me!!  All the while, we’re looking out of the corner of our eye to see if everyone else is loving us for our curves, crazy, and attitude.

It’s as though if I love me, then maybe YOU will love me too, right?

Not necessarily.

And why?

Because humans are really screwed up when it comes to love.  BEAUTIFULLY, irresistibly, and understandably so utterly messed up about it.

You can attempt to love yourself in spite of not being loved the way you want (note use of the word “spite”, not precisely the most empowering, positive phrase, right, and we’re already off to a bad start).

Or, “You don’t like me? Well, I’ll show you how awesome I am!”

That’s somewhat effective.  But only just somewhat, because you still need to dig deep, to get past those rock solid layers of self disdain, before you even come close to the warm centre of true adoration.

What I like to call the Self Love Layer Cake.

It’s in there.

Somewhere.

Thing is, eventually, you must love yourself just because of yourself.  Your beautiful, luminous, powerful, magnificent, unique self.  And not because you want crave others to love you.

You need to work on loving yourself because, let’s face it, the flipside of things is simply unbearable.  Hating yourself is utter and total hell.  I know.  I’ve practiced that art for a very long time, something I’m certain many reading this now, can empathise.

Extract yourself out of that hell hole, with tenderness and acknowledgment, and acceptance and respect, in full awareness.  And when you find your feet firmly planted on solid ground, throw yourself a good life party.  Every single day.  For the rest of your life.

You know, sometimes, we “act” as though we love ourselves so we don’t have to go through the painful process known as “change“.  Saying, “I love myself just as I am, completely, and no changes are required“.  And that’s often bullshit (albeit on varying levels).  Except, and this is the important bit, our soul so very much wants to change what’s not working.  But we’re afraid (and this is often misdiagnosed as being lazy or arrogant or complacent) to do what it takes to effect change.

THINK ABOUT IT

Fake self love can turn into a cop-out for really growing.  Evolving.  Becoming.

I’m thinking that we feel if we love ourselves the way we are now, then we’ll become better, more loveable.  Now this is particularly mind-boggling because we’ll go do something tomorrow that’s an act of insecurity or less than awesome (often misconstrued as selfish or stupid or inconsiderate), and we’ll be thinking, “If only I were better at loving myself, I wouldn’t have f***** up so badly“.

The truth is we’re all (mostly) a bit twisted up about love.  Loving ourselves.  Loving each other.  Illusions, attachments, detachments.  Past experiences.  Soul contracts (which aren’t permanently binding, incidentally).  It’s incredibly complex and complicated.  Acknowledge and accept that,  and then move on.

Imagine this (and I know this would be hard, because our practical side will rebel against it), imagine that YOU ARE LOVE.  Your soul, cells, the very fibre of your being.  It’s the stuff of LOVE.  You are original, you are you, you are LOVE.  Today.  Yesterday.  And all the tomorrows you have.

So, go easy on yourself (that includes you, Sheela).  Really and truly easy.  Celebrate yourself, no matter what.  Even if someone thinks you’re loud or tacky or terrible, too much of this, too little of that.  That’s their prerogative.  And you have the prerogative to disagree.  Make how you move through the world an homage to your beautiful, powerful, magnificent, loved self.

That same self who may very well still f*** up tomorrow but will continue to be made of love.

SELF LOVE

And now, a super duper cool link-up with someone I’ve long been a fan of.  In this online world we call blogosphere, fakeness and plastic fantastic personalities abound.  So when you come upon a soul who is genuine and authentic and kind and nice, you definitely feel blessed.  That’s how I felt when I got to know Ada (thank you so much for having me).

In the past, I’ve been fortunate to have Ada as part of Project Sister Act, which is a clear indication of just how big a fan I am of her style, her colour choices, of her personality.  Do investigate her blog, if you haven’t yet, I promise you’ll be enchanted by all sartorial options you’ll discover.

Do join us in today’s link-up as we present our individual interpretations of outerwear.

And remember this.

Self love can be a tough road but it’s one worth travelling.

 

Love, Sheela

Finally made the transition to AV and am now on YouTube as well as Snapchat (sheela.goh), would adore your support through subscribing to my channel/adding my snaps. 

Pretty please?

p/s my photos are by Sofia Touassa

I link up here.