by Steve Mayeda

THE IRONY OF SELF-LOVE
In our culture we look at self-love as winning, doing what we want, taking extravagant trips, and having cultural adoration.   This is not self-love, this is part of a different culture.  A culture that is afraid to show their real selves to their social outlets creates a culture of fear.  A culture of fear that lies about who they are and how they are because they are afraid, is a culture of self-hate.  A culture where the individual hides from themselves.  A culture that is afraid to really be who they are.  A culture that cannot admit defeat, failure, or showing any sign of weakness.  A culture where we can only show failure if we have beat it, conquered it, or show off the nobility in how vulnerable we are.  A culture that is obsessed with looking good to not be itself out of fear is a culture of self-hate.   

WHAT IS SELF-LOVE?
The real story of self love is something you almost never hear about, making it harder and harder for people who seek it to actually find it.  

True self-love has to do with reality.  It has to do with the bad days.  It has to do with the solitude.  True self-love means that at times you will hate yourself,  you will be ashamed, and you love yourself so much that you’re willing to sit in it, sift through it and become the person that will walk through it just to be you.  It is to be you despite what other’s think.  You will sit in it despite the image and reputation, despite the the lie that is always available for you to tell and says you can get something for nothing.   

To love yourself means to seek and cultivate the self.  When you look more deeply into the self you will have to sort out the lies you’ve told yourself.  You will have to face the wrongs you have lived in your life.  You will have to look at what you had to survive through.  You will have to look at the survival skills that may have helped you in your childhood, early adult life or your career that turned into dysfunctions and disorders.   Everyone has a shadow, and to love yourself means to accept it, sit with it…and at some point in processing through the deepest parts of yourself, you will find that your greatest fears, shames and darkest sides of you don’t need to be something you hide from.   Instead, they are part of the key ingredient in loving who you are.  When you hide any part of yourself, you’re denying yourself.   

Self-love isn’t wearing a mask that says “self-love.”  This is really an act of fear and cowardice.  This is part of the irony of self-love.The self can’t wear a mask.  

The other part of the irony is that the path of self-love always has a part in it where you will hate yourself…and you’ll have to be it.  Why?  Because you’d rather be this great beautiful thing that is you, instead of an image.  

HOW DO YOU LOVE YOURSELF TODAY? Photo by Steve Mayeda

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