Dear hev,

Self love is a little tricky. I spent most of my life hating myself deeply. When I made a decision to start loving myself (because the hate was killing me), I first tried to do a lot of ‘activities’ that if I accomplished them, I hoped would constitute my self love. It was okay, but I still didn’t respect myself really.

It wasn’t until I made it really simple and easy that I started to understand. I started by saying ‘Hi’ to myself. “How you doing today, Jenn?” I asked myself. “Crappy,” I replied. “I hear you,” I comforted myself. I couldn’t begin with ‘love’ (too much), so I started with a truce! ha ha. I started to give myself a bit of a break even though I couldn’t manage full love.

As far as your body, yes, it’s not easy. But with that I started to respect my body, not for how it looked (too much to start with), but with what it had been through and what it had done for me. It was an awesome, tough body that helped me a lot and protected me! So I started by acknowledging that.

It was hard at first to love myself, because it was unfamiliar territory. But once I got used to it, I couldn’t go back to the hate, because I–well, I didn’t have to, and I had found out I didn’t have to.

I wish you the best in your healing to love yourself and to be open to a great relationship in the future.
~Jennifer