VforVanity

If you’re anything like me, you’ll have had a difficult relationship with ‘self’ and a bumpy journey to self love. It is such a tricky time for building appreciation of ourselves. Everywhere we turn, we see all of the things we think we should have and all of the people we think we should be. We are all guilty of this. I want to share my self love journey where I learned to shut out all of the things that don’t serve me.

The first step for me was learning to relinquish control, some things in life are out with our control and it’s so important to accept this. Let’s be honest, sometimes it’s better we don’t always have control, imagine it was all left to us, I know I don’t always understand what’s best for me. Trust. Trust that everything always works of you. In fact I recommend saying this to yourself regularly. When things get hard and you feel like you can’t get hold of it, remind yourself ‘Everything Always Works Out For Me’. Within the moment, it may well not feel this way but if you look back at all your past trials and tribulations, it has worked out in some way for you. Maybe not the way wanted or thought you wanted, you would not be the awesome person you are today if it had not been for every experience in your life. Appreciate the bad too.

Lose the negative self talk. Now, this is the area that requires the most work and it is a continuous journey. Don’t get too hung up on trying to be perfect and feeling like you let yourself down or feel ashamed when you’re not perfect. Perfection is as its meant to be, you are exactly as you’re meant to be, Perfect. You are supposed to learn and grow. You are supposed to experience things in life that pull you away from the path you thought you should be on and you are supposed to be affected by this. This is being Human. My advice with positive self talk is to try love those hard times, love the parts of you that you think you wouldn’t’t chose, these are usually the reasons the people around you do chose you. If we all had the same personality, liked and done the same things, life would be predictable and flat and most things in our world wouldn’t exist. The things that make you different, the grooves in your character are what attracts people to you. I don’t believe in flaws, I only believe in grooves. Flaws plant a negative seed in our minds, our grooves are not negative, they are us. so keep being groovy.

There are so many ways to build self confidence, but the most important thing here is to learn to do this for yourself and not rely on others. Other people are not responsible for our mindsets. If you give that power away, you are opening yourself up to the negative too. You are accountable for you. Most people when I say this feel I am trying to take away their experiences but that is not what this statement is giving. When you take responsibility for you. You have the control. You have the choice to walk away. You have the power to build yourself up and prevent others from pulling you down. You cannot control how others treat you but you can control how you allow it to affect you. Remember that other people’s actions and words are a reflection of them and not you. Spend time in front of a mirror, positive self talk or just observing. Every time you find yourself being negative, look through it. Keep looking. I recently heard an interview with Meghan Trainor, she spoke of when her therapist told her to look at her naked body in the mirror for five minutes, set a timer. The first day was hard but by day three she was finding the positives in her body. This is a great way of forcing yourself to REALLY look at your body. Not just glance and walk away when you feel grossed out with a tiny ‘imperfection’, really look. You are giving yourself the chance to love what you see. Put a picture of yourself as a child on the bathroom mirror. What would you tell that child? Would you tell them they have a big chin or nose? Of course not. That child is you.

I guess I wanted to jump on here to try remind whoever reads this that

1. You are perfect
2. Stay groovy
3. You have all the power
4. Spend time working on self love
5. Be kind to yourself

See you on the daisy chain!