Secrets to Loving Yourself

"As the saying goes, never let yourself get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired."

When I was a child, I was loved but faced inconsistency from my parents. They divorced and involved me in a fourteen-year custody battle. My parents' mental health was also poor. One would appear and the next moment disappear. This inconsistency caused me a lot of pain.

To cope, I created multiple personalities. As my home life became more and more unstable, I turned heavily to these personalities to outlet my love, make decisions, and deal with the guilt and shame I felt surrounding my circumstances. They were tremendous help—they gave me hope and allowed me to feel in control of my life.

When I lost them, I lost the tools to cope with the ongoing issues. Loosing the personalities I'd created made it even harder going to university. I developed severe anxiety, which meant I wasn't able to connect with the people around me and my teachers.

I skipped classes and became even more out of touch. I was depressed and so unhappy I frequently thought of ending my life.

When I stopped believing in the personalities I created, I stopped being able to love myself and be happy. For the past year, all I wrote in my journal were suicide notes. I'd once had a passionate dream of becoming a writer but grew to feel useless and meaningless. I thought it'd be better to die.

Someone once told me the only reason people attempt suicide is because they want to change. I've spent the last year considering what I want to change and discovered that I don't want to die because I love myself.

While suffering from depression, I often felt disappointed in others. I felt alone in the world and wondered why, but I also realized that I would never truly be alone, because I had the capacity to love myself.

Those personalities were fragments of my true self. While I thought I hated myself and thought it'd be better to kill myself, I also thought that deep down a part of myself cared for me. I couldn't explain this understanding. It felt inaccessible to me.

Then, one night a couple months ago, I sat down and wrote a love letter to myself, radiating with love I hadn't felt in years. It was a powerful experience after only being able to write suicide notes for a year or more. And any time I'm feeling sad, I talk to myself when I'm alone in my car. I'm able to access the part of me that cares so easily now. Maybe it looks crazy, but to me it's the only time I can calm down and not feel overwhelmed.

One of the secrets to truly loving yourself is to speak to yourself in the second person. If you say, "I forgive you!" it has a completely different effect than saying "I forgive myself!" or "I forgive me!" To explain, one sounds like a request and the first sounds like the powerful reunion between friends.

The secret of loving yourself is also the secret of creating yourself and accepting the power to be multiple and infinite.

Secrets to Loving Yourself

Today, I found To My Daughter, With Love: A Mother's Memory Book by Donna Green. I hadn't ever looked through it and was surprised to find a type--written letter my mother taped to the front, of course for me to read one day! It's a declaration of self-esteem and it reads:

MY DECLARATION OF SELF ESTEEM
I AM ME,
IN ALL THE WORLD, THERE IS NO ONE ELSE EXACTLY LIKE ME. THERE ARE PERSONS WHO HAVE SOME PARTS LIKE ME, BUT NO ONE ADDS UP EXACTLY LIKE ME. THEREFORE, EVERYTHING THAT COMES OUT OF ME IS AUTHENTICALLY MINE BECAUSE I ALONE CHOSE IT. I OWN EVERYTHING ABOUT ME—MY BODY, INCLUDING ALL ITS THOUGHTS AND IDEAS; MY EYES, INCLUDING THE IMAGES OF ALL THEY BEHOLD; MY FEELINGS, WHATEVER THEY MAY BE—ANGER, JOY, FRUSTRATION, LOVE, DISAPPOINTMENT, EXCITEMENT; MY MOUTH, AND ALL THE WORDS THAT COME OUT OF IT, POLITE, SWEET, OR ROUGHT, CORRECT OR INCORRECT; MY VOICE, LOUD OR SOFT; AND ALL MY ACTIONS, WHETHER THEY BE TO OTHERS OR MYSELF.
I OWN ALL MY FANTASIES; MY DREAMS, MY HOPES, MY FEARS.
I OWN ALL MY TRIUMPHS AND SUCCESSES, ALL MY FAILURES AND MISTAKES.
BECAUSE I OWN ALL OF ME, I CAN BECOME INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH ME. BY SO DOING I CAN LOVE ME AND BE FRIENDLY WITH ME IN ALL MY PARTS. I CAN THEN MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR ALL OF ME TO WORK IN MY BEST INTERESTS. I KNOW THERE ARE ASPECTS ABOUT MYSELF THAT PUZLE ME, AND OTHER ASPECTS THAT I DO NOT KNOW, BUT AS LONG AS I AM FRIENDLY AND LOVING TO MYSELF, I CAN COURAGEOUSLY AND HOPEFULLY LOOK FOR THE SOLUTIONS TO THE PUZZLES AND FOR WAYS TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ME.
HOWEVER I LOOK AND SOUND, WHATEVER I SAY AND DO, AND WHATEVER I THINK AND FEEL AT A GIVEN MOMENT IN TIME IS ME THIS IS AUTHENTIC AND REPRESENTS WHERE I AM AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME.
WHEN I REVIEW LATER HOW I LOOKED AND SOUNDED WHEN I SAID AND DID, AND HOW I THOUGHT AND FELT, SOME PARTS MAY TURN OUT TO BE UNFITTING. I CAN DISCARD THAT WHICH IS UNFITTING, AND KEEP THAT WHICH PROVED FITTING, AND I INVENT SOMETHING NEW FOR THAT WHICH I DISCARDED.
I CAN SEE, HEAR, FEEL, THINK, SAY, AND DO. I HAVE THE TOOLS TO SURVIVE , TO BE CLOE TO OTHERS, TO BE PRODUCTIVE, AND TO MAKE SNESE AND ORDER OUT OF THE WORLD OF PEOPLE AND THINGS OUSIDE OF ME.
I OWN, AND THEREFORE, I CAN ENGINEER ME.
I AM ME AND I AM OKAY.

I wanted to share with everyone. Read it over and I hope the words resonate.