How Much Do You Love… You?

How much do you love you?

Seriously think about this question.  How much?

Enough to scribble your name in the margins of your notes and draw hearts around it?  Enough to gush endlessly about how “almost perfect” you are to anyone who will listen?  Enough to forget all the bad things you’ve ever done, and only remember the good?  Would you stare dreamily into your mirror-reflected eyes and –dare I say –steal a kiss?

I think you see where I’m going with this.  Do you love yourself that much?

I’m going out on a limb to say I’m sure most of you don’t.  I know I don’t.  I love myself, but not nearly as much as I should.  At one point in time, I loved an ex-boyfriend more than myself.  I couldn’t stop praising his wonderful attributes.  But while I was steady lifting him up on a pedestal, I was slowly bringing myself down by becoming increasingly critical of myself.  My flaws piled up, while his disappeared.  Eventually, I realized that he was not the right guy for me.  Although I loved him, I had to love myself more by moving on.  And I did.

But I wonder why is it so hard to apply the same intensity of love and devotion that we give to significant others to ourselves?  Why is it so easy to see the good in others and yet so hard to see the same in ourselves?

Falling in love with another person can seem like free-falling through the air.  So why is falling in love with ourselves an uphill battle?

What got me thinking about self-love began with a discussion I had with a group of ladies I meet with weekly.  In these meetings, which are called “Hot Topics,” we talk about things young women our age deal with.  This particular week we talked about our fears.  We realized that at the root of our fears were our struggles with self-esteem.  How we felt about ourselves influenced our fears.

For example, feeling less than worthy of someone’s attention encourages the fear of rejection.  I admitted that I feared not being good enough.  Just as easily I could have told the ladies that I felt I wasn’t good enough.  If I fear it, I must feel it, right?  If I was confident in myself, I wouldn’t need to fear not being good enough.  I didn’t realize this until after our “Hot Topics” meeting.

We decided that for the rest of the week we would focus on overcoming our fears and our bouts with low self-esteem.  In the days that followed, I became increasingly aware of moments when I would hesitate to do something.  I recognized this hesitation as a form of fear, and began asking myself, what are you afraid of, and why?  To answer “the why” I had to then ask myself, how do you feel about yourself?  Sometimes it would take a little digging, but each and every time, I realized I wasn’t feeling that great about myself.  My self-esteem was suffering.

And it was worse off than I thought it was.  I knew I felt a little down about myself, but I never realized how critical I was of myself.  There were parts of me that I didn’t like and didn’t accept, and parts of me that I flat out judged.  I was being my own “mean girl”.  I was being so critical of myself that I just had to ask: Do I love me?

I soon began asking myself whenever I felt a sense of hesitation or fear, or my low self-esteem getting ready to attack –how much do you love you?

Depending on the situation, I would answer “I love me enough to hold my head high when walking.”  “I love me enough to smile and say hi to this person.”  “I love me enough to know that I am good enough for someone to want to get to know me.”  “I love me enough to know that I am capable of doing [insert here whatever I may have been hesitant to do].”

This has worked more often than not.  And it has helped me become friendlier, meet new people, and take advantage of opportunities.  But most importantly, it has helped me to realize how crazy it is not to love myself as much as I should.

We should be totally in love with ourselves, but it is easier said than done. If you are learning to love you, here are a few tips to help you along the way:

1. Accept yourself for who you are. Sure there are things about you that you would like to change, and you can.  But who you are inherently –the parts of you that will never change –you should accept and learn to love.  Take the time to stare at yourself in the mirror, and get used to who you are seeing.  You will be seeing A LOT of her for the rest of your life.

2. Get to know you. You can’t accept yourself as you are if you don’t know who you are.  Figure out your likes and dislikes.  Discover your passions and what makes you smile, and pursue them.

3. Tell yourself you’re beautiful. Tell yourself you’re beautiful every day.  Not only because you are, but because if you don’t believe it, you will soon after hearing it so often.  Like, and then learn to love, what you see when you step in front of the mirror each and every morning.

4. Believe in yourself and your capabilities. Be your biggest fan and supporter.  Encourage who you will become.  When you truly love someone, you love him for who he is and who he can become.  You believe that he can become his best self.  Nurture that same belief within you.  Believe that you can become your best self.

5. Post notes around your dorm room or bedroom, and on your mirror. Inspire yourself each day with notes of encouragement and meaningful quotes.  Post sticky notes on your mirror that say, “I am beautiful” or “I love me.”  (If you don’t believe a post-it note can work wonders, check out Karen Wood’s article The Power of a Post-It: Operation Beautiful.)

Our self-esteem is like a rollercoaster that never ends.  It goes up.  It goes down.  Does a couple loops, and then comes back around to start all over again.  But we can do more than go along for the ride –we can control it.  We determine how we feel about ourselves.  And we choose to love ourselves.

How much of you will you love?

Are you crazy in love with you?  If so, how did you fall in love with you?  Share in the comments below.

Shannon Palmore is an intern with College Lifestyles, and a Senior majoring in English at Spelman College.  When her head is not stuck in a book, or in the clouds, where she dreams about culinary arts school and her first book signing event, she is searching for ways to live her best life (cue Oprah’s O Magazine).  Each day, she is learning to love herself more and more.