The Misconception About Self-love

Is self-love really what we think it is?

Art by Elisa Talentino

To love yourself is to accept you. To love yourself is to drench yourself in the pure gold liquid that is happiness. To love yourself is to view you, complete with every vulnerable insecurity, and still recognize that you are you. And you are always enough.

When did loving yourself become a phrase that describes a deception, that you may look at yourself not as you really are, but as who you wish to be?

When my classmate says, “I have such small eyes,” The girl beside her insists that she does not. I ache to tell her that her eyes are two slenderly-shaped slivers containing flecks of light that remind me of peering into those of a kind kitten’s. They are small, but they hold the gaze of enormous curiosity. They are deserving of love.

Why did the other girl attempt to console my friend by claiming that her features, the ones that existed and were hers to love, had disappeared? Why do so many of us misconstrue self love as being closer to a certain standard of beauty than we really are? Because at the end, that’s all it is, isn’t it? A standard for us to relentlessly compare ourselves to, until there are no parts of our bodies left for us to brutally attack.

I don’t want to be lied to. Don’t erase me and replace my features with something other than my own. I am not a canvas for you to paint a perfect picture on.

Teach me that I do have those very qualities I despise so much, but that is okay. Teach me to love myself, but know that to love myself, I need to accept myself. All of me. And that is okay.

So the next time you tell me, "Love yourself." Mean it.

The false ideas others put in my head about what I look like only last as long as they’re there to keep maintaining it. But me, I’m here until the end. Isn’t it much healthier to be content with myself instead of an idea of me? Because what happens when that person isn’t there anymore to lie to me, what happens then? Do I fall back into a pit of self-loathing? If so, then maybe I never really loved myself in the first place.

I ask people, “How do you love someone?”

They say, “You want what’s best for them.”

I ask people, “How do you love yourself?”

They say, “I… don’t know.”

To me it’s simple. Caring for yourself isn’t all that different than caring for someone else. Do what’s best for you. Take care of you. Put yourself first. Don’t say to yourself what you would never say to a five-year-old child.

It was easy yesterday for me to scroll through my phone, as if on a loop. Like, swipe, pause. Like, swipe, pause. It was easy five minutes ago for me to compare myself to those who do not carry the same weight as me, who do not have the same frame I do. It is easy for me to doubt myself when I publish this article, online for everyone to see. Because what if no one cares and everything I think about or thought about is just me? What if all of this was a me problem only me and nobody else feels this way?

I push those lingering thoughts away. I want you to read this.

Love does not discriminate. Love is not picky. Do not select parts of yourself to love. Choose all of you. That is it.