❤️‍🔥 How can I love myself enough when I don’t feel like loving myself? ❤️‍🔥

“Maybe that’s the first step towards loving myself on days I don’t feel like loving myself. Or maybe I am already approaching the finish line of this journey. I’ll know when I know.”

This is an excellent question, isn’t it?

Sometimes I wake up with a strong feeling. The feeling of not being enough. I’m pretty sure this is a feeling many people can relate to, but anytime it happens I feel far away from everyone. I also feel like this is something we’re not talking about enough as society.

And there is this word again: enough. What does enough even mean? How do I know that I am/have/experience/rest/communicate/move/breathe/sleep/do (…) enough?

And why can I only love myself if I’m enough? Shouldn’t loving myself be unconditional? Can I love myself during the bad days as much as I can during the good days? Or, can I love myself even more during the bad days, when I really need it? Why do I have to deserve my love instead of loving myself by default?

How can I be kind, gentle and loving towards myself when I don’t feel like it? I haven’t quite figured out if it’s normal to have days of absolute resentment towards myself.

I love the person I became. I worked hard to become that person. And it’s work that will never stop. I am convinced you can create yourself every single day. But I haven’t quite understood how I can treat myself with the same kindness and love I show towards other people around me. I’m really good at encouraging others, holding space, giving advice, showing up and being consistent.

I have witnessed myself doing amazing things. I have experienced myself going through the ups and downs of life. I know myself better than I know anyone else, so why is it so hard for me to encourage myself, hold space for myself, listen to my own advice, show up for myself and be consistent?

There is a lot of advice out there on how to love oneself. I once googled “how to love myself” and got a 13 point list about habits that I should adopt to love myself as a woman. As if men need different habits.

I KNOW all of these things on this list. And more. I know that I should stop comparing myself to others, that I should allow myself to make mistakes and that I should trust myself. But on days when I don’t feel like loving myself, I don’t think I DESERVE love. So I intentionally compare, distrust and above all else, punish myself.

It’s a cycle that is very hard to break. And I’m trying every day. I recently made a lot of progress in accepting the fact that life comes in waves and that some phases look different than others. Currently I’m in a very low energy, low activity kind of phase and instead of forcing myself to do more, I accepted that energy and activity will come back with the next wave, or the wave after that. Maybe that’s the first step towards loving myself on days I don’t feel like loving myself. Or maybe I am already approaching the finish line of this journey. I’ll know when I know.