The Journey to Love Myself

Learning to love myself is quite a journey. Loving me means accepting all the things that I do not like about my condition. It means being kind to myself and my thoughts and learning to not be my own worst critic. All of that is difficult but it is a worthy journey to take. Three days ago, I fell first thing in the morning when I got out of bed. It was so painful I was sure that I had serious injuries. As the tears ran down my face, I found myself being judgmental and critical of me… berating myself even for falling.

I was mad at myself even though I know that I can fall easily because having toddler like balance is but one of the challenges of my condition. What could I have done differently, I thought. If I had taken another step, would not be in pain right now. At once I stopped myself from being so critical because I was able to get up and quickly realized that I was not hurt badly like I feared. I told myself then it could have been much worse and to just be grateful that I was not hurt badly. Just be grateful it is nothing but soreness I told myself.

I realized something in that moment changing my mindset to gratitude instead of being critical of myself for something that was just an accident was monumental for me. It means that I am starting to give myself a break, at least sometimes, and for me that means that I am starting to appreciate and love myself for the miracle that I am and how far I have come. It does not mean that I do not have work to do to love myself more, but it means I am making progress. I understand that continuing to learn to love myself, all of me, will be a lifelong process but I am proud to be making progress. By showing you all that loving myself is something that I am working on and will continue to work on I hope it will encourage you all to work on the areas of your life that you need to work on and realize it is OK to be transparent about trying to better yourself. By being so vulnerable, I hope to show you all that it is OK to be a work in progress because we all are all the time.