Gurbani Chandok
Tagore International School, East of Kailash
Self acceptance, body positivity, self love- everyone’s heard of these terms at least
once. But, what is self love? To understand these concepts, we’ll have to talk about
the opposite concept first i.e, self hate and victimization of self.
We talk about self love but nobody talks about the conditions we put on that love. I
feel guilty when I’m too tired to work, when my work isn’t the best, isn’t perfect. I
find it hard to love myself at that point. I feel like I love myself when I’m dressed
nice, when I’m working for hours, when I’m winning but it isn’t easy to feel the
same way when I don’t look my best, when I’m tired and don’t want to work
anymore, when I’m struggling, when I’m loosing.
Social media sells an idea of self love where it is equated to journaling, dressing up
and going out. Although it’s completely true that these activities are good for our
mental health, self love is a broader concept. It encompasses loving ourselves when
we aren’t easy to love. To really achieve self love, we need to devotedly fall in love
with ourselves. We need to embrace our flaws. We need to stop hating ourselves
when we don’t attain the vigorous standards we create for ourselves. It’s odd how
we’re willing to give that unconditional love to others but not to ourselves. Another
difficulty that I believe social media has a gigantic role in is the way we constantly
compare ourselves to others. It takes just about ten minutes to scroll on social
media; look at people’s best moments, their prettiest pictures, their happiest days,
compare them to our bare face, and our not so good days. This puts down our
confidence for the next few hours, days or even months when done repetitively. It’s
hard to realize that we are harming ourselves when we do this.
Though easier said than done, we need to practice a mental diet to actually attain
self love. We need to learn to be conscious of our negative thoughts and replace
them with positive ones. We need to practice self control to be able to focus more
on our goals. We need to be focused more on what we think about ourselves rather
than what others think about us. We grow only when we do this. And most
importantly it feels like a burden is taken off of our shoulders. The relief we get
when the weight of negative thoughts, and low self esteem is taken off us is
priceless
