Self—?

Self—?

How would you complete that word? Self-love, self-care, self-health or would you rather retort to self-hurt, self-harm or self-pain? The human body functions in so many amazing ways. You discover a new ability practically every day. So why do we still constantly undermine ourselves? Why doubt your self-worth?

Its something we all struggle with…ourselves. It’s something each of us has to work on and we find that so difficult. We mess up just one time and instantly our whole world collapses infront of us. We lose our self-confidence. Just one mistake reduces us to rubble. Makes us want to harm ourselves. We feel like if we take ourselves out of the equation, everything will be better. Well it won’t be! Self-harm is never the answer. Just because you cannot cope up with a particular circumstance doesn’t mean you should feel worthless. One error does not mean the end of the world, especially not the end of YOUR world!

We’re humans. We’re designed to mess up, mess up so that we learn from mistakes and improve ourselves. But what do we do? We let our mistakes dictate us. Instead of learning from them, we let them control us. We’ve got it backwards. What good is self-pain gonna do you? Is harming yourself going to fix it? Is undermining yourself going to help you learn? Is hurting on someone or something going to help you? Most importantly…Is it all worth it? We let the tiniest things get to us, consume us. Just because we don’t get someone else’s approval, we doubt our skills. All this was just because of pressure. Pressure that we put on ourselves to achieve impossible standards. And on failing at the first attempt, we replay it in the back of our minds. The only question you gotta ask yourself here is- Is putting yourself through all that really worth it?

Now let’s talk about hurting for a few minutes. What do you go through during self-hurt? Self-hurt burdens you. It consumes you. It plays with your feelings and emotions. You can feel the weight on your shoulders. You feel depressed all the time. Just because a certain situation doesn’t agree with you or the odds are not in your favour, you start hurting. You feel like you can’t take it anymore and so you start hurting yourself despite the fact that you know it. You no longer take anyone else’s feelings into consideration. You only acknowledge your feelings. You feel like your actions wont affect anyone else anymore. Let me tell you how wrong you are. Your hurting affects everyone around you. It affects your family, your friends and above all, yourself. You may not want to accept it but there are people who care about you. People who wake up everyday just to hear from you. All you have to do is let them in. Share what makes you hurt. Letting them in is the first step. Remember, you’re not in it alone. There’s no problem that can’t be solved when you have people to help you. I know you feel like if you let people in, the more chance they have to walk right out or that if you share your problems with others, it may burden them. I agree, it may be a risk. The people you let in may walk right out. You cannot control who walks out or calls it quits on you. But you choose the people who walk in. So choose them carefully. Be open yet careful. And if they still walk right out, at least you’ll realise what kind of person they really were. You learn either way. As far as burdening people with your problems goes, the people who truly care about you will never think of you as a burden. They’d be more than happy to help. So, don’t ever think these reasons compel you be face everything alone. They do not!

Next comes self-pain. Personally, this is the one I relate to more often than others. This is when others don’t necessarily accept you. They point out your flaws to you. It’s a constant reminder for all your imperfections. Its when you feel like you don’t fit in with the other crowd and you cast yourself out. You feel like your flaws destroy you as a person. Your pain is valid but it’s not worth it. I know how hard it is to accept your flaws when everyone else mocks them. I know how you wanna give up. I, myself haven’t really faced this problem head on because frankly it still terrifies me. The thought of being pointed at and not being accepted really gets to me. And I’m sure it gets to a lot of you.

Now that we’ve talked about self-harm and self-hurt and some of their solutions. Let’s discuss self-care for a minute. That’s the main focus here. Stop and think for a second, do we really care for ourselves? Do we look after ourselves the way we should?

There’s only so much each of us can take. We’re not robots. Nor were we meant to be. Each of us can bear things to a certain level. After that, it just piles on. It’s at that point you start to neglect self-care. Instead of taking care of yourself to do better you keep reminding yourself you can’t handle it. That makes it harder for you. It creates fear and anxiety. That leads to self-doubt which leads to you questioning every move you make. That leads to you feeling depressed and confused. Which further leads to more haziness. Oof… so much drama for only so little of you. Can your body really process so much? more than that, is it fair to it?

So how do we go about it? how do we cope?

Firstly, pick yourself up. You may be shattered; you may be broken. Collect all those pieces and assemble a stronger version yourself. Get yourself together first. Believe you can do it. If you have faith in yourself, there’s nothing you cannot achieve. Next, its okay to cry, to let it out. Its absolutely fine to break down when you cannot take it anymore. It doesn’t make you weaker, it makes you a million times stronger. Facing your problems requires a lot of will power. Breaking down before it doesn’t mean you don’t have it in you.

Next, embrace your flaws. Accept your messes. There’s this saying- “Be proud of all your scars, they make you who you are”. That’s something that keeps me going. The only reason people point out your imperfections is because they are insecure about themselves. They ridicule you to make themselves feel better. Its not worth your time, trust me. NEVER STOP LOVING YOURSELF.

I know everyday may seem like a task and every breath will feel like work but you need to get through it. Instead of suffering, allow yourself to heal. Recover. Accept your pain and recover from it. just never give up on yourself. Don’t you get it? YOU’RE THE ANSWER. In every problem, there’s a you. So, you’re the one who can do something about it. and learn to ask for help if you can’t. its not a bad thing darling, it helps you grow.

So, this goes out to everyone who feels they’re alone. To everyone who can relate. To everyone who needs to accept themselves. And to everyone who needs to know self-care. Because honey, you comes first!