Being stuck inside for such a long time and now the ‘month of love’ coming up, it is inevitable to not be eaten up by the thoughts of self-worth and how much love we deserve.

The idea of self-love isn’t taught to us. In this capitalist society, education forces down our throat the idea of marriage and reproduction at an early age. We must find a partner to love and live life following the form that has been passed down through generations. But the more time that has passed, the unhappier people seem as they don’t want to follow this pattern anymore. And that leads to the question, can we really love someone if we don’t love ourselves?

One piece of advice that has stuck with me for quite some time when I worry about what people in public think about me is: “Do you care that much about that stranger you saw?” 

Overcoming the fear of self-love is a battle that starts and ends with yourself. It is a selfish state of mind that everyone must have where you put yourself and your happiness first. 

Many people rush into relationships. They are unhappy with themselves and think that if they find a partner, all their problems will be solved. For some people this may actually be the case, for others, it just makes their self-esteem worse. Getting into a relationship where you as an individual are unsure what you really want and deserve can lead to tolerating the bare minimum. It can lead to a controlling and one-sided relationship. Once your partner knows that you won’t leave them because you are scared to be alone, they will push the boundaries and test the limits. 

That’s why the best kind of love you can receive is the love you give yourself. This can be positive affirmations in the mornings, buying yourself little gifts or even just taking the afternoon off after a stressful day. 

Trying to achieve this type of love however can take time and be very frustrating to deal with. Acceptance is the first step. Once you believe that you deserve this kind of love, things will go a lot smoother. This mostly happens after one finally leaves a toxic relationship or encounters a situation that wasn’t healthy for them, which is very unfortunate; the fact that we must put ourselves through pain in order to decide that things must change. 

The second stage begins once you start working on yourself. Delete those people off your social media who make you question your beauty or make you upset with the type of life they are living. Declutter your life. Remove items and people from your life that make you unhappy. Why keep something around if all it’s going to bring you is pain? 

Starting with a clean slate allows you to create new traditions, new relationships and so allows you to create a new version of yourself. One that will make you happy. 

A realisation that not many people come to is that time will pass by no matter what. You can decide what you do with that. You’re allowed to have bad days because you worry about how you look or act, but too many of those will turn into months wasted on things that wont matter in the long run.