The Love Yourself Paradox

Love yourself. You don’t need to be self conscious or worry about what other people think. You should accept yourself and be happy with who you are, be confident and love yourself.

But you might also want to consider the fact that just being yourself isn’t really enough. You should probably strive to have a perfect figure and juggle a happy home life with an executive job and be ahead of the trends whilst also doing your bit for charity and going on holiday to an exotic island.

I think it can be quite confusing living in a society that, on the one hand, advocates self-confidence and self-love, but then on the other hand endorses the ‘perfect lifestyle’, which can lead us to envy others and in turn criticize or begrudge what we have. What are you supposed to think when you’re scrolling through Instagram and see a line up of “real women” with varying body shapes giggling together in their underwear, representing strong, independent ladies who are comfortable in their own skin, and then a few images later you see a ‘social media influencer’ posing for a mirror selfie with her perfect abs on show, gushing about the new ‘teatox’ that can make you lose 10lbs in 10 days (by giving you the shits, they forget to mention).

Why are we encouraged to accept ourselves but then made to feel that we’re not enough?

Well, actually, we’re not.

Magazines and social media influencers can say what they like, and it’s up to us whether we let it affect us or not. We can chose not to compare ourselves to them. Because the key to self-love isn’t about whether you actually fit in, whether you’re ‘normal’, whether you can see other people around you that are the same as you. The key to self-love, or even just self-acceptance, I have found, is to accept that we are all insanely unique and different and special and that we don’t need to compare ourselves to others.

During my experience of anorexia I became obsessed with comparing myself to everyone – and I mean literally everyone, like if I was out shopping I would assess everyone’s body type trying to measure up whether I was bigger or smaller than them, trying to make myself feel better and reassure myself that I was normal. Throughout my recovery I focussed on my opinion of myself, telling myself over and over that I was beautiful and smart and loved. But the confidence I was building was fragile, and not really genuine, until I stopped feeling the need to compare myself to other people.

A moment of realisation came to me when, at a family christening, my cousin Kirsty read a poem about how unique and special every individual is. I can pinpoint it clearly, that from that moment I have found it so much easier to love who I am. I’m a person in my own right; I have a unique set of characteristics and talents, only I am me. So there is no need to compare myself to other people. I don’t need to be envious of people who have things that I don’t, because I’m unique, and I’m just trying to be the best version of myself, not anyone else.

I roll my eyes at society’s attempt to tell me I’m beautiful and then, a minute later, make me feel inadequate, because actually… I’m just trying to be me.

PS – here is a link to the poem which inspired me