Perhaps the greatest struggle we will face in life is to accept and love ourselves in spite of our imperfections, flaws, failures, mistakes, and regrets. Self-love is one of the most important journeys we can undertake. It is hard work and a continuous journey. It takes time, effort, and patience to cultivate self-love.

This is a story about my self-love journey and how I healed my sense of self worth. I grew up feeling unworthy and unloved. On the outside, I was just like any others, but on the inside I was insecure, felt unvalued and abandoned like no one cared about me. I was also very shy and introverted so I didn’t know how to speak up for myself and express my feelings either.

I kept a lot to myself. I didn’t feel confident with myself, my looks, my body, and my personality. I was so afraid of being judged by others. I didn’t want to be seen as weird. I cared too much about what other people thought.

I grew up believing that the phrase “I love myself so much for who I am” means I’m too much of myself because society said so. If I did something different from people my age did, I was picked on and laughed at.

I grew up believing that I didn’t feel loved unconditionally. I thought that to be loved you need to be either beautiful or successful. I felt like I had to be successful in order to be loved, accepted and approved by others. I felt like I had to be someone else in order to gain others’ approval.  I was often taught to put others’ needs before our own, and self-love can be seen as selfish or egotistical.

So what exactly is self-love? And how did I heal my self-worth and cultivate self-love? Self-love is not about selfishness or egomania. Most people confuse self-love and narcissism.

Narcissism or selfishness is about obsession with self. The word ‘narcissism’ derives from the Greek myth about Narcissu, a beautiful young man who fell in love with his reflection in the river and drowned in it as he reached out to touch his reflection.

While self-love is a non-judgemental understanding of self and an acceptance of our strengths and weaknesses. Having self-love also helps us to extend compassion towards others, and allows us to gain awareness of our connection with others. Healthy self-love is not about comparison to others but it is about an awareness of who you are.

Self-love means accepting and appreciating yourself for who you are, faults and all. It is about taking care of your physical, emotional, and mental health and treating yourself with kindness, compassion, and respect.

I started learning to love myself when I was in my late twenties. I learnt that it is very important to start retrieving all the love for myself that I had lost over the years. I realized I was stuck in a loop of resentment compelled me to take action, for no one’s benefit but for my own. It took me almost years to fall in love with myself and gain confidence in myself.

Firstly, I start to have self reflection. I have a deep conversation with myself. Asking myself many questions and honestly answering them. Actually I am the kind of person who likes reading motivated articles or catchphrases, or watching inspired videos. Hoping that those kinds of things keep me motivated and finding me happiness. Until, one day I feel overwhelmed, those kinds of things could not help me anymore. I felt so depressed and started hating myself more and more. It took me years to live this kind of life. Then I started to do reflection with myself. Asking how I feel. What is wrong with me? Why do I need to treat myself like this? Why am I so hard on myself? Reflecting on all the things that happen to me ,including good and bad. Then I realized that doing self-talk is more effective than just watching motivated videos, or reading catchphrases from others.

The journey of self-love can be a challenging one, but it is worth every step. It requires a lot of introspection, self-awareness, and patience. Here is a list of steps that helped me cultivate my self-worth, I found after I did deep reflection. I hope they help you, too: