love myself

I’m letting go of my first solid identity: the young, fresh, cute, wide-eyed ingenue. I am no longer that person, though I hope to always retain the sweetness, receptiveness, and optimism. I am older now. And that can be wonderful if I let it. I have to allow this new woman to emerge. She is stronger because she takes full responsibility for herself in every way. She has more life experience, which is sometimes translating into wisdom (when she has truly learned). She is a woman of faith and substance. She is learning how to identify and go after sources of happiness. She is struggling to love herself completely in this moment: aging body, character defects, and all. She is trying to take a hold of her power, but hasn’t quite gotten there yet. She is trying to find her creative voice and start using it with dedication.

I love myself more when I don’t give in to the negative bitchy part of me. Of course I’m allowed to be human and imperfect, but I want to be able to handle difficult emotions gracefully. I’m really working on being emotionally stable, thinking positively, and acting gracefully when I’m not feeling good. I’m not talking about denial … I want to feel and see everything. I’m just talking about not flying off the handle internally or externally.

Part of loving myself needs to be loving my body. I think this is the only way I’ll ever get in shape. I have to love my body FIRST, then I’ll be motivated to be good to it and connect with it. Disliking my body is getting me nowhere quick. My new mantra is “I love my body” and actually when I dig in there is a part of me that does love it. I only have to bring that part forward and tell the critical part to back off.

Today I am so down on my life and myself.

A friend told me I can’t convince myself I’m complete, beautiful and wonderful just as I am, and nobody else telling me can convince me either. She said only hearing it from the divine (God, if you will) will bring the knowledge into my heart. I plan to pray for help with this one.

If you love me, accept me as I am. Love my weaknesses, my fears, my defects.

I spend most of my mental energy thinking I don’t measure up and then blaming myself or feeling sorry for myself. This is insanity! I’m a relatively intelligent, attractive, fortunate, accomplished, loving woman … though I don’t believe it as I write it. Hmmm. I just don’t know how to change these thought patterns so I can love myself. Do I have to prove it to myself? Take on challenges that show off or enhance these traits? How can I prove to myself that I’m intelligent—by gaining the esteem of others I consider intelligent? Why do I need affirmation from others to believe in myself? Maybe it’s about making more use of my potential, using what I’ve got. That must be it. They say esteemable acts build your self-esteem. Or as some people say, use what God gave you.

I will be my own Darcy – love myself JUST AS I AM.

My friend who is a therapist told me I idealize others and use the image of perfection to beat myself up for not being perfect too. She said they are not as perfect as they may seem to me—they have problems that are not apparent to me.

This impossible ideal is something I have to let go of if I’m going to love myself.

The daily mirror work is going well. It’s still hard to think of the positive actions/qualities, but I manage. I have faith it will pay off eventually.

I get distracted by my face in the mirror – start messing with it to see what it would look like if I had a little ‘work’ done. But at least I’m looking at myself more and trying to love myself as I am physically too.