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I struggle with making mistakes.
When I mess up, I get stuck in endless guilt trips and beat myself up over poor decisions and minor reactions.
Eventually, I get over it. But when I do, I return to self-love.
I love myself “again”…
I’ve always found it hard to practice self-love in the midst of emotional suffering. I’d rather keep my behaviors and actions “perfect” than be real.
Because the truth is being real scares me. It scares me so much that I tend to place it in a different category than self-love.
Being real means making mistakes. It means feeling many ugly and messy emotions. That’s why I like to overcome my imperfections and negative behaviors before I can truly love myself.
But I’m wrong…I’ve always been wrong.
When my ugly emotions pass and my mistakes dissipate, I see how easy it is to love myself. Loving ourselves when we’re happy and grateful is easy indeed. But loving ourselves when we feel shame and guilt is so damn hard.
The truth about self-love is that it’s not a destination. It’s not a reward system that enhances our mood or improves our spiritual practice.
Self-love is not about perfection; it’s about progress.
Every second.
Every minute.
Every day.
It doesn’t stop when we stop being perfect. It doesn’t pause and wait for us in a corner to pull ourselves together. It’s continuous and it’s unconditional.
When I make mistakes, my mind immediately gets trapped in negative thoughts. I fail to accept my roller-coaster emotions and pursue quick fixes instead. What if I stop? What if I literally stop for one moment and take it all in?
The ability to keep an open and kind heart while dealing with feelings of self-hatred is exactly what makes self-love so great, so real.
That’s how we progress and grow. That’s how we embrace our whole identity without criticism or resentment.
When we fall, we stand up. When we stand up, we know we might fall again. That…is self-love. That…is how we recognize our value.
The next time you mess up, what story are you going to tell yourself? What choice are you going to make?
When we choose growth, we choose self-love.
When we choose self-love, we choose ourselves—unconditionally.
~
author: Elyane Youssef
Image: Alexey Demidov/Pexels
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