This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCD chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.
From ads to songs to celebrity interviews, the term “self-love” has ricocheted off all corners of the media. It sounds logical at face value: “You can’t love others without loving yourself”……but what does it actually mean to “love yourself”?
Self-care, body positivity, and personal growth have been spearheaded by the “self-love” movement. Even in my own platforms, I’ve indulged in conversations around my journey through beauty, academic worth, and the meaning of love. However, the way I entertained these concepts never hit the target of what “self-love” should be. In fact, it took a great deal of prying into my turbulent self-esteem to understand how “self-love” works.
I reflected back on my four years of college, feeling proud of what I accomplished academically, socially, physically, and professionally. I told myself, “Wow Gayathri, you’re studious, fun-loving, strong, and dedicated.” However, my high school life contrasted like night and day. I struggled academically, severely struggled socially and physically, and therefore, believed myself to be awkward, dumb, and ugly. Eight years can bring tremendous change, and while I enjoyed the triumphs college brought, I deterred from associating myself with positive qualities. I gaslit myself into believing it’s humility, but in reality, it was a fear of being wrong.
What if the next four years of adulthood bring the same pitfalls as high school? Will I be ugly, awkward, and dumb once more?
The constant cycles of caution and despair I felt towards my identity sickened me. How is it I could never celebrate one talent, physical feature, or grade of mine? I needed to determine the source: what I was attaching my self-esteem to. Unconsciously, I connected every external result to some intrinsic quality of mine, which explained why my self-esteem dichotomized between high school and college. I had to learn that self-love comes from detaching our identity from outer results….including positive outcomes. If I have a large friend group, does that make me popular? If I get one compliment for an outfit, does that make me attractive? Maybe, but does that actually define who I am?
The only way to triumph over obstacles is resilience, but resilience cannot exist with self-doubt. Well, where does self-doubt come from? Fear that your identity will be defined by failure. Once you learn to flip the script, you can manifest outcomes in your life that align with your goals. People often preach from the mountaintops to not care about others’ opinions, but it’s easier said than done, especially when many of life’s opportunities are based on others’ perceptions of you. However, it all circles back to resilience: if you know who you are, you will naturally fight for opportunities, and rather than let failure define your qualities, you will let success be a reflection of who you defined yourself to be.
My journey to define my identity began with establishing my life values, followed by unweaving the “sense of self” tree that was poorly established based on past outcomes. My grades, friend groups, body, and speech shouldn’t define me: I define who I am before letting my grades, friend groups, body, and speech embody that energy.
With all the hype around self-love, it’s failed to educate us on how our identity must be molded independent of our environment. Going to the gym, eating healthy, using skin care—does that mean we have self-love? Does accepting the flaws and strengths of ourselves mean we have self-love? Not necessarily. We’ve been taught that being happy for who we are in our current state is self-love, when in reality, self-love is established when we are surrounded by a hurricane of failure and triumphs, and we can still stand strong in the eye of it all. It’s not that we are happy or sad that the hurricane exists, but rather, “This hurricane does not define me—I define what role this hurricane plays in my reality.”