Part, the first
You are a fucking mess.
What, still here? Weren’t expecting me to go that hard so fast, huh? Buckle up buttercup, cause it gets way worse.
You deserve love.
Ooo, that one hurt more than the first didn’t it? You’ve made it this far, so maybe you’re actually going to stick with me.
You can’t earn love.
‘But…but you said…’ Yep, hard and fast. We’re not wasting any time, cause this is a long road.
You already deserve love.
But you don’t love yourself. Or else why would you be here, reading this article? I wasn’t lying above when I said this is a long road. Cause here’s the thing. Loving yourself is simple, but it’s not easy. And you know why?
You have to accept that you deserve love.
And there’s the sticking point. Look at it. Feel it. Look upon it and despair. Rage at it if you want to. That is the only thing between you and loving yourself. The only thing. The. Only. Thing.
Simple, but not easy.
Part, the second
Nice, you followed me to the second part. Congratulations, and since it’s not always easy to tell with text, I say this entirely earnestly. Imagine I am standing in front of you, grasping your hands, looking into you eyes with a hint of tears in mine. Because I want this for you. I want it so hard it hurts. Because you want this for you. You want it so hard it hurts.
We’re going to take this one step at a time, but there are a few things we need to go over just to set things up. 1) I am not a therapist, this advice is just a result of my own research and experience. 2) You might need a therapist. Remember, and I say this with love: You are a fucking mess. And some people are more a mess than others and need someone who has studied how to deal with said mess and help make sense of it.
Still here? Again, congratulations. Here’s where I let you in on another secret, this one really is a secret.
Your mind doesn’t want you to love yourself.
So a majority of you hear a little voice in your head. It insults you, says things that you would never say to another person, and the worst part? It sounds exactly like you.
Your mind is not you.
Your mind is millions of years of instinct with one, and only one, goal. To keep your body alive. To keep your heart pumping blood throughout your body to keep your lungs working and your brain active.
Your mind doesn’t care if you’re happy.
Happiness, to your mind, is not in the definition of being alive. Many people can attest to the ability to be unhappy and still alive. And now the worst part:
Your mind will actively work to keep you from being happy.
Okay, it’s not working against your being happy per say. Your mind is trying to avoid doing any work at all that does not involve the active task of keeping your body alive. This is why all you ever really want to do is veg out on the couch, or take a nap in the middle of the day. Your mind wants you to conserve energy, because at any point you might need to run from a saber tooth tiger.
Because your mind thinks there are saber-tooth tigers.
There are not, in fact, saber-tooth tigers. But unfortunately your mind does not care about logic. It does not care how you beg and plead.
Your mind wants to keep you alive. Period.
And that means your mind is against anything that expends energy. That, includes, but is not limited to, working to improve your own happiness. You may have noticed how short I’ve kept most of these paragraphs. It’s on purpose.
Your mind will actively work to shut down any extraneous work.
That means losing focus, getting tired, fogginess, a straight up inability to think. Even reading this. It’s weird when you realize for the first time, that when you’re trying to think, to improve yourself, that your brain shuts down.
Tell your mind to shut up until an actual saber-tooth tiger shows up.
Simple, but not easy. You can’t do anything to curtail this except to practice noticing when it happens, and pushing through anyway. It takes repetition and practice.
Part, the third
Whew, you’ve made it to another part. You really are in this for the long haul aren’t you? High five. Time to get down to the brass tacks. This is where you finally, get a task with a specific, measurable result. Not always easy when working on mental stuff.
Make a list of all the reasons you don’t deserve love.
I’ll wait. No really, I want you to actually put pen to paper. (Or keyboard to blinky cursor.) You have reasons, we all have reasons. Write them down. It is a mighty list. Look at them, study them. There are items on that list you’re embarrassed about. You would never show another person. Make sure it’s complete as you can make it.
Throw away the list of reasons you don’t deserve love.
Simple, but not easy. Man, it really keeps coming down to that one phrase doesn’t it? Is the list gone? Is the list really gone?
The list is completely made up.
It does not matter. It’s not real. It is your mind doing its level to keep you alive by keeping you focused on the saber-tooth tiger. Now another list.
Make a list of everything you need to do, to deserve love.
I’m waiting again. Do what you do on your preferred medium. Think of everything you need to do, need to say, have to accomplish. In order to feel you deserve love. You can number it, organize it in levels of importance.
Throw away the list of everything you need to do, to deserve love.
I mean you saw that coming, didn’t you? Maybe you did. Maybe you didn’t. Remember, I told you above: ‘You already deserve love.’ You forgot, didn’t you? It hasn’t even been that long. That’s your mind again. It makes you forget.
The list is completely made up.
Truth of the matter, it’s also impossible to complete that list. Because even if you did the work to achieve everything on that list (that you threw away already, right?), your mind would come up with new reasons to add. Got it? Simple, but easy. Make a new list, one item:
I deserve love.
You don’t need to have reasons. Fuck reasons. You need practice. You’ve spent your entire life listening to your mind make lists, give you reasons, having you run from the saber-tooth tiger. (btdubs, your mind thinks all anxiety is a saber-tooth tiger. That’s why it’s so overactive. Cool right?)
I love myself.
That’s it. That’s all you have to think. Try it, just once. I know you can do it. You lie to yourself all the time anyway, what’s one more?
I deserve love.
Like swinging a golf club, like drawing a picture, like making an excel spreadsheet. It starts off messy, inefficient, painful, but you do it. More and more. Over time it will get easier.
I love myself.
And then it will get harder again.
I deserve love.
But keep practicing.
