Having a strong desire to be recognised by others, to be loved by others and to be admired by others is something I struggle with, basically since my preschool.
Love me, please
My mum would often compare me with others with questions like why I can’t be more like that other girl and my dad would often compare me with my little brother with remarks that he is more athletic, has better friends etc. Those comparisons certainly boosted my desire to be liked by others and to compare myself with others. The problem is: there will always be somebody who is better than me in something. Why? Because I myself do not credit myself for my successes or for my uniqueness. Although we are all similar (e.g. we are all humans), each of us is also unique in something (e.g. we all have unique set of fingerprints).
Due to my professional background, education and self-discovering therapy journey I’ve been going through for the past 10 years, I know that social praise and recognition won’t heel me or make my desires any less intense. I will heal when I give myself credit for all I’ve done and still am doing and when I honestly start loving myself for who I am (when I truly accept myself).
I also know that starting to accept myself, in baby steps, helped me be more authentic in my close relationships and it helped me to show parts of my vulnerability. As a response to showing myself more, I got so much support from close people in my life I can’t describe.
The circle of self-acceptance
The combination of the four (accepting myself, showing myself, being seen and then accepted by the people close to me), helps me heal and helps me deal with my “demons”. And the combination of the four is like a magic circle: the more I accept myself, the more I am brave to show myself and thus people close to me are able to see me, accept me and then again, that helps me to accept myself even more and so on…
Within this circle, even when there is something people I love don’t like about me, I can deal with it more easily: through humour, acceptance that we are all different and through awareness that they will not discard me because there are things they don’t like about me. There are plenty of things they do like about me and that’s why we are so close.
What I’ve also noticed is that by accepting myself, I have more capacity to see and to accept people close to me as they are. With all the characteristics I truly like and with the ones that bug me. When I look deep down in myself, I know I wouldn’t want them to be any different than they are. Because I love their core. I would also like to say I love my core as well but I’m still not there. Actually, sometimes I do love myself (my core self) but sometimes I find it overwhelming.
How am I starting to love and to accept myself? I’ve written about some of the steps in this blog post. What I can honestly say is that developing this blog (writing all these blog posts) is my journey towards self discovery and starting to express myself more in every aspect of my life. Both my professional and my private time are my life and I want to be myself as much as I can in each second of my life.
So here’s to that!
Written with love,
