The Path To Self-Love

Hi again, I mentioned previously that one of my goals was to learn to love myself entirely and I just wanted to share with you why I feel it's necessary and the first steps I plan on taking for advancing on this journey to love myself.

First of all, life is hard. I know this, you know this, we all know this but there are ways to make it easier. I didn't make my life easier - in fact I made it harder because I set myself in certain ways and thoughts on how I should be in the world.

What I mean by this is, I was taught one way of being. This way of being that I was taught, was to be selfless. All of my life, I was raised to believe that everyone else is better than me and deserves more happiness than me. I don't know if it was intentional or accidental but that's how I was raised. My feelings weren't as important as everyone else's because I was one small insignificant person and everyone else was bigger and better than me.

As I got older, it got worse, this way of being. I became the very definition of a people pleaser. I spent all of my time and energy making sure everyone else was happy because they were better than me. I went through a lot of things and all of those things caused me to hate myself, so as I got older it just seemed natural to do for everyone else because why not? I don't even want to make myself happy. I just wanted to see other people smile, my mom, my sister, my mom's boyfriend, the teachers at school, my friends, the kids on the other side of the classroom. I wanted them to smile and be happy and it didn't matter that I wasn't.

In Elementary school, I was bullied - a lot. I didn't think it was worth standing up to because of how I was raised but the minute my friends got bullied, I didn't care who the other person was, all I knew was that the other person was causing my friend to not be able to smile and I had to stop it. So I put myself on the line - if you will - I let them tease me, make fun of me, and torment me because my friends were more important. When my friends would ask if I was okay, I would smile and say, "Yeah, as long as you're okay." and that was that.

As I became an adult, I started focusing on making my mother happy and my sister happy, and my father - who wasn't even in my life really in Elementary school - happy. I started focusing on my partners being happy, I ignored my wants and needs and felt shitty when I expressed my want and needs so I sacrificed everything that I had for their happiness.

By the end of 2020, I realized that it had become an instinct of mine to give up my happiness for someone else's. Even my boyfriend doesn't realize everything I sacrifice for him. It's not on the same level as material sacrifices, it's deep ways of being. When we fight, I try to tell him what I want but end up giving up because it's not what he wants so instead I gave him what he wanted. When my mother and I were still speaking (a whole other story that I will explain at a later date) I sacrificed everything for her. I did everything I could to make sure she was happy and content, don't get me wrong, she did help me but I was still miserable because I would not let myself get the things I wanted or do the things I wanted because of her. It wasn't until the beginning of December that all of those sacrifices hit me and I realized that I literally had no idea who Faith was anymore. I bent to everyone else's expectations.

I looked back to High School and realized I am not at all the same as I was back then. The way I acted Freshman year of High School compared to now is drastic, not even a good drastic though. I hurt people because I sacrificed for others. I hurt an ex-girlfriend of mine by choosing a boy over her but what she didn't - and probably still doesn't realize - is that she had hurt me way before that but I kept my mouth shut because she was happy and that's all I wanted. It turned into every time I did do for myself - it would cause pain to someone else I care very deeply about and so I just stopped doing for myself. To this day, my ex-girlfriend and I still haven't talked about that and the boy I chose over her and I don't speak anymore.

So, as time went on and I got to stew in my losses and sacrifices, there was a lot of crying, a lot of self-loathing and a lot of regret - there still is - but I made the decision to do for me because I was sick of bending over backwards for everyone else and literally losing myself for other people. I want to discover who Faith is and what type of person she really is. It won't be an easy journey but it's a journey I'm willing to make and it starts with Shadow work. That's something my mother and I briefly touched on but something I knew was waiting for me. Here's a tip, work on your shadow work while it's still fresh or it will ruin your life as an older adult. Don't wait until the last minute. Own up to your shit and come to terms with the real, genuine, you.

Now that I've gotten that out there, I'd like to share with you my first few steps in healing and learning to love myself: Step 1: Think About Who I Am As A Person, Step 2: Accept Who I am As a Person, and Step 3: Learn About the nastier side of myself. These are what I feel are the first few steps in order to begin this journey. If you would like to join me, get ahold of me and we can talk!