We talk about self-love as if it’s an easy thing to acquire.

We all see those quotes as we swipe through our social media feeds saying something along the lines of ‘if someone were to ask you to make a list of the people you love, would you even make your own list?’ And many of us may take a step back and think, well crap, that hurt my heart a lil bit. Dagger directly into the self esteem I thought I had.

In the other bucket, some of us might say heck yeah I am on that list, of course I love myself *hair flip*

Either bucket, we all understand that we should love ourselves. Whether or not we currently do.

What isn’t in those quotes or photos flooding our feeds is how to love yourself. Or how the process is going to make you feel while you’re learning to give yourself the love you easily offer to everyone It doesn’t say that going through the process of learning to love yourself is ugly.

It doesn’t say that telling yourself you’re beautiful is hard.

Odds are, you’d rather tell the biggest lie in your life to the person who means the most to you, than to say to your own face that you are worthy as you currently are.

It’s a practice and it’s hard.

It is a practice that takes persistence, courage, and choosing to look at yourself in the eyes without breaking contact.

It takes showing up in front of the mirror every day and not sighing or frowning at the site of the dimples on your legs or the crooked smile that came from your Dad’s ancestors.

It takes showing up in front of your friends and not pulling your shirt as far away from your stomach as you can because you’re embarrassed by your bloated midsection.

It takes choosing to fight those engrained, toxic thoughts in your head that you’ve been speaking over yourself thus far in your life.

Loving yourself is hard, and loving yourself is a practice.

The reason it is difficult, is because many of us don’t think we are worthy. But if there is anybody in this world that you should love, it should be you. It doesn’t make you egotistical, it doesn’t make you selfish, it doesn’t make you conceited.

If you expect others to love themselves, you have to love yourself too.

Let’s run through an example.

Picture this: your favorite person in the entire world of worlds walked up to you and told you they hated what they saw in the mirror every day. That every second of every spoken word that leaves their lips makes them want to vomit.

How would that make you feel? I hope you picked a good enough friend in your vision to make that feel real; to make your heart sink. you see endless potential, inner and outer beauty, you love when they speak, How could they hate themself?

How could you?

You are worthy, you are perfectly made and have the capability to grow into the person you want to be. As you are. Right now.

Practice loving yourself. It’s gonna be tough as crap. Your first step could simply be smiling at yourself in front of a mirror.

You gotta start your practice, because that crooked smile, those thigh dimples, that bloated belly, it woke up today. It brought you to the people you love.

Its perfectly yours.