I’ve been thinking about this topic a whole bunch lately and I wanted to write about it today. It’s about the idea of loving yourself in the now. Why I say ‘in the now’ is because I feel like many of us feel out there feel like we are not deserving of love unless it is earned somehow. Lately I’ve been thinking about how this concept applies to self love as well.

Throughout my life I felt like if I proved myself to people then they would love me. Maybe if I changed to be better somehow they would love me. I would try to change myself somehow, but whatever I did it never worked. I’ve struggled throughout my life with this concept in all of my relationships with family, friends, and guys I was dating.

I thought very deeply about this lately and what I realized was that all this time I was actually trying to win over myself. That really in the depths of my hurting was that I never felt good enough for myself. I may have not fit what others wanted me to be, but other people’s standards were never as high as the ones I had for myself. This whole time I thought I was trying to get others to love me, but I was really trying to earn permission from myself to be loved by myself and others. I came to this realization because I realized a person who has real internal love for themselves they don’t change for others, because they already know their worth. If they choose to change it’s because they want to better their life. People who truly love themselves love themselves when honestly things around them could be a pile of shit. They don’t need approval of others or the right circumstances to feel alright with who they are. They love themselves regardless of anything. They don’t need permission to feel loved. Even if others hate them they wouldn’t change because they are that confident/ in love with their own self. They truly just don’t give a shit, and I think that is really beautiful.

You could lose 100 lbs., get plastic surgery, have the best makeup routine, have the most captivating personality, but if you don’t love yourself where you are what makes you think that you will love yourself when you make that change?

In my early 20s I literally changed myself in every way possible to get other peoples attention. I lost a ton of weight and went to the gym every day. I dyed my hair blonde. I wore a ton of makeup. The problem was is that I didn’t do it for myself. I did it to try to make others validate me.

The honest truth is people did validate me. I went from zero attention to having guys hit on me almost everywhere I went. But the kicker was that all of it DID NOT MATTER. When I was little I told myself if I looked like a Barbie doll then I would somehow be worthy. I’ll never forget the moment this man told me I looked exactly like a Barbie. I felt confident for about 2 minutes and then guess what even that compliment that I had wanted to hear my whole life didn’t even truly validate me. All these compliments from men were just a quick fix to validate myself while internally I still felt not good enough for myself.

Currently I am not as skinny as I was back then, I don’t spend hours straightening every piece of hair or applying layers of makeup, but I am way more confident in myself and who I am now more than I ever was when I looked like that. I still try to always look my best, but I refuse to base my value on whether a guy thinks I’m really attractive or not anymore. Because I know that no matter how much validation I can receive from a man it would never truly make me feel good in the long term.

What I’ve learned in my later 20s is that the only one who can give me that true value is myself. I’m in no way perfect at seeing myself like this (as it’s trial and error), but each day I’m learning, growing, and realizing that just by being me is more than enough. And that I don’t need permission from anybody to love myself from where I am currently in life. I know that at the end of the day I am worthy. I am worthy to be loved by others and most importantly I am worthy to be loved by my damn self. That means loving myself when I’m not a size 2, loving myself on the days I have a pimple face, loving myself when I’m feeling down, loving myself when I’m way up high and loving myself when I’m way down low. Loving myself when I succeed and when I fail.

Now that I think about it, it kind of sounds like vows haha. I actually like that idea maybe I’ll write vows to myself to myself later. I hope you are getting where I’m going with this all Dreamers. The overall message to take a way here is that it doesn’t matter how rich you are, how good looking you are, how personable you are. No matter how good at any area of your life you are it is not going to matter at the end of the day if you don’t love yourself regardless of any of that.

I want you to look deeply within yourself today Dreamers and ask yourself “Would I still love myself if ‘X, Y, Z’ wasn’t there?” I hope the answer for you is yes and if it isn’t I dare for you to start in this moment excepting and loving yourself in the place that you are. So what you are not your ideal weight yet? You are still worthy of love. So what you haven’t finished your degree yet? You are still worthy of love. Underneath everything you are worthy. You don’t need to accomplish anything to prove your worth and that you deserve love. You are worthy and deserving of love in this moment, exactly how you are right now.