Self-Love: Our attempt at parenting ourselves.

Sometimes, families are difficult. We are surrounded by broken souls who have a unique method of coping with it to move forward in life. But no matter what distinguishes them, what doesn’t change is that they don’t want others to be better than themselves, subconsciously. Children who grew up in such families have magical abilities. They can sense the air in the room, guess people’s moods from their faces and are able to put up with all kinds of nonsense. They take abuse for love, manipulation for tenderness and give sacrifices as presents. But even after all this, both parties are dissatisfied. One is unhappy with himself and the other is unhappy with the former. The never ending void that these children try to fill up ends up draining them to the point that they forget what they were doing all of this for. The validation that they never received along the way.

As time goes by, it ends up falling into the category of sunk costs fallacy. It takes time, effort and awareness to understand this is a void and when you do, the next step is to try to love yourself. Somehow, loving yourself is hard. You find it so easy to be kind and understanding to others but when it comes to yourself, all that remains in the ugly satirical voice in your head that seems to be critical of every single thing you wish to do. They are either condescending or demeaning and their only purpose seems to be to stop you from moving ahead. And they also think they are protecting you from embarrassing yourself.

Additionally they call self-love selfish because everyone except yourself is entitled to your time and you don’t want to look bad in their eyes. Doing things for yourself makes you feel selfish. Saying no or setting boundaries make you feel rude and standing up for yourself makes you feel arrogant and disrespectful. You also don’t know how to console yourself when things go wrong or how to stop yourself from doing things that you know is bringing you harm.

But before we move forward, let me just congratulate you for being here. For gaining awareness and taking that decision to make a change. All solutions in the world begin with understanding the crux of the issue and since we are the issue, let us start with understanding ourselves. At the beginning, anything other than what you used to do, feels wrong. This is the simple truth. You feel like you are trying to be someone you are not and the reactions of people around you might confirm that to you.

Our first reactions when this happens is to go back to how we used to be, right? After all, that version of us was well-received despite the fact that we were unhappy when we had to put ourselves in a lower position. But that isn’t necessarily wrong. We need the strength to keep persisting on what we believe. And to cultivate that strength you need a strong conviction. And conviction comes from that back and forth. Because think about it, at this level of awareness even if you go back in a few days you are going to start to realise that maybe things aren’t inherently better here either and so you try again. You try to stand up for yourself, maybe once again you push back and this back and forth will give you enough reasons to make a decision.

And strength isn’t about winning at the first try, but the ability to allow yourself to hold out hope that you will try again and win, no matter how many takes it might take.

I used to wonder about self-love and the difference it would make in my life. Truthfully at the beginning, I found it meaningless. Meditation, taking care of myself, mindfulness, all of these made no sense to me. But I wanted to make myself more disciplined so I continued on that path forward. When we talk about self-love, all that comes to mind are those skinfluencers spotting a mask on their face with a Stanley in their hand, showcasing their latest nail art. The last time I used a nail polish was years ago, when I was very young and used to apply my sister’s old polish on my nails and would stare at the web like thing on my toes, wondering what went wrong. So I was dismissive. As if taking care of my skin will automatically assure me a good life.

A life lesson was learnt at that point. Maybe things in life are inherently connected. To be disciplined, I need to be focused and have enough concentration, for which meditation helped. But to be able to meditate I needed to calm my mind and allow myself to be in the present, for which mindfulness helped. When I am mindful, I need to be able to stay calm without allowing myself to stray away due to those anxious and self-limiting thoughts, for which journaling helped. And if all of this needed to work out, I needed to be consistent, for which taking care of myself helped. If the above three are a chain, taking care of myself is the one that encompasses all because, we need evidence in life to believe that things are possible. And sometimes our goals are huge and might take time to come, so during those times, smaller goals with redeeming results help us keep our hopes up which will take us farther when mixed with mindful efforts.

When this consistency held up strong, yielding me results, I had a stronger conviction that allowed me to be more disciplined towards my goals.

But sometimes life happens, right? You have this beautiful well connected plan in mind and suddenly life starts throwing curveballs at you. You know what they say, man proposes, god disposes. What do you do when this happens?

I was pissed for a while and then I let go. There was nothing else I could do. I used to be angry, you know? I used to scream, I am only trying to be a better person, what is wrong with you? Such situations are out of our comprehension and we could struggle, try to make things better, hoping it would all come together again but taking the path of least resistance is the best strategy. We need to believe that everything happens for a reason and for all the things that you wish to be, life has a grand plan ahead.

This could be better understood with the phrase, ‘Be careful what you wish for’.

There are stories of many people who had wished for strength going through various obstacles in their life. When I wished to be more disciplined, I was shown all of the things that stopped me from being disciplined. And, as a result I worked through it and that allowed me to become stronger. Days are long, but years are gone. While we are at the midst of chaos, seeing no way out it is very easy to crumble. To be honest, now that I look back I don’t know how I did it. Half of it was facing my fears while the other half was letting go and laying flat. And after a huge struggle, there is a realisation. An epiphany that brings clarity to the situation, clearing up your troubles because knowing your battle is a battle half won. And then that went around in circles, but the result was worth it.

So the next time someone tells you self-care is all bubble baths and scented candles, throw this article at their face. Hey, free publicity!

When things get dirty and you find yourself frustrated, and you start to question yourself, it is important to understand why you are doing all of this. So in such times, a vision board containing all of your desires and wishes will help cheer you up. Everyone needs a motivating factor and if it isn’t intrinsic, make it extrinsic. (So, I am halfway through and suddenly realised that self-care sounds depressing)

Try to take care of the emotions you feel and record them. Your feelings are your guide, they show you what is on the inside. Every single thing you feel right now, is felt for a reason. The hold the pointers to where we are supposed to focus to overcome our current obstacle. Allowing our body and minds to work for us, help us navigate the situation faster, because let us all be clear, they probably want to get out of this situation more than you do.

As someone with a logical mind, most of my struggles involved trying to not find reasons for the things I was doing or analysing if it brought me happiness. Like a thief stealing from my bowl of happiness, doing so had me at a loss in many situations. Learning to surrender control, doing the trust fall (life showcased an example of the penrose staircase) and being okay with the mindless things helped me become more patient and accepting with life.

I wanted to say the above because there are times your efforts could bring unexpected gains, far exceeding what you thought you would be getting. So if you have a tendency to be rigid like me, let go and see where the river takes you. When you find yourself in a place that finally makes you happy, let me know.