I've always been a self-love advocate. Much of this self-love preached stemmed from a dark time in my life when I followed the self-hate "mantra". But what I've learned from a summer full of romantic love and good times is that self-love has no "congratulations, you've loved yourself for 3 months (or whatever) now you'll be set for the rest of your life!" No, self-love is a lifelong process full of trials, tribulations, disappointments, joy, and peace. This summer has been one for the books. It's been freedom packed with my first summer with my own constant source of income, my own car, and no curfew. It's been lovely with great friends and a blooming relationship. It's been fun filled with crazy nights full of intriguing conversations, lively late nights, and other somewhat typical teenage business. Sadly, though throughout this I often sidelined my own mental maintenance. As you probably expected, a lifestyle as such resulted in just as low lows as high highs. Usually, the day after a stellar night I would feel off. The best way to describe it would be emotionally dissatisfied. It felt as if something was missing- not filling me up. And I couldn't exactly figure out what the problem within me was. But instead of trying to take a couple hours off from my crazy life to figure this out, I would drown out my minimal emotional confusion in more crazy fun times. Of course the highest of highs produced the lowest of lows. Finally one night I absolutely cracked- public tears, shaking for hours, completely emotionally destroyed. I was confused as to why such an emotional catastrophe occurred in such a ,what I thought, "good with themselves" person. Especially since the only time something this extreme ever happened was when I was super unsure of myself. Then it clicked. Somewhere between the fun nights and crazy memories I forgot to pause and love myself. In not doing so, I began to waiver in my own understanding of the person I truly am. It's like all the fun tricked my mind into thinking I was a-okay or in-check with my emotions. But I was just using an easy way out to give myself the "I feel good" fix I needed to have a night of fun. So in short, what I've learned is: The journey never quite gets any easier than when you first start loving yourself. To love oneself requires constant upkeep in the area of mental wellness- letting yourself feel things of great capacity, allowing yourself alone time to check up on yourself, immediately addressing any problems in your train of thought, and most importantly using coping methods that provide a healthy permanent fix rather than a quick and temporary one. You've got to keep up with yourself no matter the loss because when you're not in check everything around you will slowly fall alongside you.
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AuthorLife enthusiast, tea addict, Winnie the Pooh admirer who is hopelessly pursuing happiness by any and all means. Archives
April 2020
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