True Self-Love Has Little to Do With Pampering or Rigid Boundaries

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Selika Cerofolini, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.

I’ve been doing everything right: I meditated, read insightful books, took a hot bath, spent time with people I love, cooked my favorite food, got a massage, and relaxed on my extra-comfortable couch. I took good care of myself. So why didn’t it feel right?

Love yourself, everyone says. Love yourself first. The mantra to get anything good in life, which increasingly feels just like another item on the list: “Love yourself. Check!”. But what does that mean?

In most blogs, posts, pages of books I read, and people’s words I hear, the concept of self-love is associated with “fixing yourself”. Eat healthily! Go to the gym! But drink a glass of wine to unwind! Lose weight! But anybody’s shape is to be celebrated! Overcome your fears! Establish your boundaries, but be vulnerable! Socialize, but take time alone! Prioritize your career, prioritize your relationships, prioritize your creativity, prioritize your self-care…agh! It seems to me that we are asked to maneuver ourselves into some kind of healed goddesses undeterred by any obstacle or block, who walk through life with grace and control, self-assured and happy no matter what. But is that self-love? Is that even possible?

Thanks to a breakdown, I found out that I mistakenly thought I was loving myself, but I was not. The results weren’t lasting and that particular sense of lack within me didn’t get replenished. I was trying to do everything “right”, but in all that rightness there was something very wrong.

“We should start living without being afraid of disturbing others” — F. Roversi

I wasn’t loving myself. When that hit me, it scared me and triggered an ancient pain. I was incessantly trying to be better, get better, handle it better; to find faults to correct in whatever I did, and I constantly worried about unsettling others with the expression of my needs.

I was feeling continually abandoned. It took me a painful awakening to realize it was me abandoning myself over and over again.

I was doing so by not acknowledging my needs, by not even allowing myself to “need” anything. I was responding but not asking. I was talking to myself like I was inherently wrong or not good enough, trying to fit into the hologram of what seemed “lovable”.

The pressure of my unrealistic expectations was unbearable, so much so that I secretly cultivated a deep inner wish to disappear from everything and everyone, to run away where no one knew me, and be free. Free from what? From the cage, I was closing myself into while thinking it was my liberation.

What was worse, this time I didn’t know how to “fix” it. But that was exactly the point, and I finally saw it.

There’s Nothing to Fix
I can’t even remember when I started to try to “fix” myself. What I know is that since then, I have been working so hard on it, that I lost myself in the process. I wasn’t present, as much as I was tending to an ideal super-version of me; leaving my actual self — the only self that exists — rather beaten and lonely. I tried so hard to be “better”, but I had not realized that my process of self-development wasn’t rooted in the love and acceptance for myself as I was, but in the longing and aspiration for this unattainable self I one day would be. To the real, actual me, I was giving an extremely hard time. A time made of judgments, criticism, blame, indifference, even when I was taking a hot bath or relaxing in my cozy home. Even when by all standards I was taking care of myself. Through a ruthless inner dialogue and a continuous intent to fix me, I was feeding my underlying belief that I was intrinsically wrong.

When the suffering and the disconnection got too intense, I finally cracked. Through that breach, a space opened up and in that space, I gained sight of myself again. As I looked within, I saw my strenuous effort to be perfect and at the same time the resistance to that very quest for perfection, because deep down I knew it was not a fair asking. I was fighting against myself twice. Realizing this, I felt such tenderness I just wanted to hold myself in a long, loving embrace, full of the long due apologies and recognition.

That breakdown helped me realize I don’t have to apologize for being as I am, where I am on my journey. This ideal future self doesn’t exist. The only one that exists is the one I am with right this second, the one who’s shaped by every little choice I make. First and foremost, by the choice to accept and love me as I am NOW, not as I will be, not as I “should” be.

True self-love has little to do with pampering, but a lot to do with listening and accepting, forgiveness and patience.

It’s about learning to give ourselves time and space when we don’t have the answers, and to be kind and supportive when we make mistakes because we are experimenting with life. It’s about learning to make friends with our fears and self-doubt, listen to their messages, and move forward regardless. It’s about acknowledging our needs and desires and not being scared to express them.

Accepting Who You Are in the Present Opens You Up to the Future
If I want to be fully open to life, I will need to take risks, because there’s no way to know how things will turn out before experiencing them. If I want to love with all my heart, I may be wounded again, but there’s no other way I would want to love. And when I fall, I want to be there to pick me up. If I am in pain, I want to be there to hold me.

What I missed was to feel that I could trust myself. Trusting that we can take care of ourselves helps us get closer to others, opens us up to new experiences, and to be less scared while doing so. Fear comes from the feeling of exposing ourselves to something that may hurt us somehow, but if we know that we are in touch with our soul and are listening to the messages of our heart, we will be ready to catch ourselves when we go too far, and course correct.

We need self-love to open up to life, not to withdraw from life.

We need it to be courageous and expand our hearts, not close them. When you are your best friend you can risk more, be more flexible. You can venture out of your comfort zone and grow because you’re going to have your back when challenging times arise. If you know you have a parachute, you may think of jumping off a plane; if you know you can trust your wings, you may want to fly. Be your wings.

I still aspire at evolving into an always more mature, grounded, open, loving being, but who I am today, in this exact moment, it’s all I have, and I am learning to love her, as she is.