Love Yourself

”Self love is powerful. It teaches you to respect, honor and care for yourself. When we learn to love ourselves, others will follow. If we do not honor ourselves, how can we expect others to truly understand us? So take the time to become your own best friend. You are perfect just the way you are.” Learn to Love Yourself, Margaret Manning, Aging Beautifully cards.

To be perfectly honest, loving myself has been a work in progress. I have struggled with this throughout my younger years and feel that as I have matured, am finally there, truly one of the benefits of aging!

I recently enrolled in a class offered by the Jewish Learning Institute at my local Chabad entitled Worrier to Warrior which addresses our “feelings of doubt, regret, insecurity and suffering, despite our yearning to feel happy, self assured and enthusiastic. The course explores negative emotions in a new light offering spiritual mechanisms that allow us to feel upbeat no matter what life brings”.

The classes are bringing up feelings of inferiority and not-enough-ness as a teenager and a young adult. Because I was a twin, my parents tried so hard not to compare us, that they failed to give either one credit for what either of us did well. As fraternal twins, we had very different personalities. I was the quiet studious one and Jill was more outgoing and social. I was content as a child to let Jill make the friends for us and do the talking. I didn’t really find my true voice until age 52 when I got divorced. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

My parents never seemed to care that I was in all honor classes and did well in school. They didn’t want to make Jill feel bad that she did not get good grades. Of course, she did not try very hard, preferring to spend her time chatting on the phone with her friends. (She asked me to teach her Spanish II the night before the Spanish II Regents and she got 65, which I thought was good). I internalized the fact that to my parents it was more important to be cute and funny with a good personality than to be intelligent.

As the outgoing twin, Jill was more popular in high school, making junior varsity cheerleading, while I was not chosen. At that time of my life being popular and a cheerleader seemed more important than getting good grades and excelling at languages. As adults, Jill and I confided in each other that she was jealous of my ability to converse in Spanish and French with waiters in a restaurant and I was jealous of her hot boyfriend Phil in high school.

Years later, it took a wonderful therapist to help me uncover the reasons for these feelings of insecurity and help to rebuild the self love. An interesting perspective is set forth in an online article called “Be the Reason Someone Believes in Good People”. Higherperspectives.com. The article sets forth five reasons people feel lost (have no confidence, low self esteem etc.) and ways to resolve it.

1. Their sense of self is distorted: People who feel lost don’t like themselves very much. They tend to have a distorted sense of self that keeps them from appreciating their own beauty, intelligence and worth. They see themselves as unworthy and insignificant, and that nothing they do is good enough. This rings true for me. My therapist had told me I was looking at myself through a distorted lens and I finally did see it! The solution is to spend more time with yourself to figure out who you are and what makes you happy. Believe in yourself and your own potential.
2. They surround themselves with people who bring them down, people who are constantly complaining, criticizing and whining about everything and everyone. This will lead you astray from your life path. My ex-husband was highly critical of me. The solution is to spend time with people who make you feel good about yourself and your life, people who make you laugh and feel you are a valued human being.
3. They try to measure up to others expectations following ideals, values and beliefs handed down by their parents or others, e.g. measuring up to unrealistic standards and of course fall short. My parents always told us we were perfect, model children and that they could take us anywhere. How could a child live up to that standard. I felt like an imposter or a fraud. Both my sister and I rebelled when we got to college. We were anything but perfect! The solution is to stop trying to live up to other people’s standards. Live true to yourself; be your own person and live up to only your expectations.
4. They hold on to ingrained fears and biases based on old programming: “nothing works for me; I always fail. Solution: Shift your perspective and attitude. Failure is just a discovery of one way that doesn’t work; look at failure as an opportunity to try again with more intelligence. It doesn’t matter what happened when you were growing up. The past need not hinder your future.
5. They never venture out of their comfort zone: people feel bored, frustrated and trapped in their jobs and lives. They are stuck in ruts to avoid taking risks and making mistakes. Solution: Get out there and do things your friends would never believe you would do (or your ex-husband when you finally decided to leave a 32 year marriage—that would be me)! Living outside your comfort zone can be exciting and fun. Remember, it is not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself and make your happiness a priority! Happy Holidays, my friends! XO Penny