Remember the days when you put on your brand new high heels, and it so happens that you got to walk more than 10k, or stood all day long during a workshop?
Or can you reckon a day when you went on a solo business trip, with a 4 a.m flight, and the hotel you stayed in just so happened to have no elevator, so you got to carry your luggage all the way to your hotel room?
Was there a moment in between your morning run, when you hit the uphill part of the park precisely at KM 5, and you talked to yourself, I should probably take a rest and walk a bit, no?
it was painful, sometimes unbearable, and almost always you wanted to take a pause so bad, but you clearly know it will be rewarding if you go on.
I thought, learning to love myself pretty much accumulates from those little moments; of trying to survive yet another weary commuting, of trying to catch a breath in between, of discerning my own voice on what I need, and making a clear distinction between what I wanted people to see in me and what I wanted to become.
It would be rhetoric to question if there is any finish line, as the imagery of learning to love myself continues to form different shapes.
Lately, learning to love myself circumvents over the thought that I, perhaps, have been putting a lot of expectation on myself; I thought, I am smart enough to produce a good writing, to have my article posted by national news outlet, to perform outstanding in classes, to deliver a better assignment in my internship. I thought, I can at least carry the dissertation project I have been dreaming.
Just when I thought I had overcome my body image issues and constant fear of people’s perception towards me, these ongoing insecurity over my intelligence starts haunting me days and night. Graduate school is not an easy journey at all, especially for someone like me who tricks herself into thinking that she might be that capable.
To confront my own fears and the bitter truth of, what if I’m never smart enough to begin with?
—
I took a moment to pause, talk to my dearest friends, and try to process things. At my own pace.
when you are locked within your own thoughts, things get even more scarier than it really is. you constantly project all sort of scenarios in which the likelihood of happenings might be close to none. when you don’t put things in perspective, your anxiety tend to meddle in and draw irrelevant causal interference between what can actually happen and what clearly not going to happen.
so these are what I have been doing lately to learn loving myself:
- having a conversation with myself whilst writing my own thought, and ask myself the following questions: a.) what am I feeling? Can I describe it in words? b.) why is my mind so convoluted? What dominates my thought? c.) how would it look like if I structure it in a problem tree?
- sleep is arguably my coping mechanism, I realise when I wanted to escape so much from my problem, I tend to sleep earlier and wake up later. So I’ve tried to push myself to sleep at regular time each day to prevent myself looking for escapades
- I realise that one of the reasons I have been feeling uneasy about myself is I spent too much time exhaling and spend too much time aimlessly; at some point of time I will need to inhale deeply. In literal meaning, this would involve reading 5–10 pages during commuting time or before sleep, not turning social media as my distraction, talking to Mama at random hours, read a page or two of the holy book (and take time to understand the definition) and spend extra minutes to converse with God after my daily prayer.
- aside than pinpoint my agendas in google calendar, each time I needed to stop working on something, I wrote a note “where I left off” so I can continue working the following day without having to figure out where to start. This would also benefit my state of mind for thinking ‘I haven’t done anything’ when I actually made a progress albeit very little.
- each time I got a feedback from my Boss, I wrote them down and set an action point on how to improve them. I have been receiving a very thoughtful feedback from my Boss that allows me to have a realisation; I am doing my thinking process whilst working on something, not prior to it. Perhaps that’s also why I constantly think my writing is not good because I haven’t put much effort to firstly construct the argument, and undertake a proper thinking process.
I also have been practicing a positive affirmation; each time I got stressed out over my dissertation, I whisper to myself “Pasti bisa, yuk pelan-pelan yuk.” i underestimate the power it bears, when I, unknowingly managed to get in the flow and regain a better focus.
I realise the journey to love myself will have no end. As I continue to grow up and progress, the things I used to worry might dissolve into ‘just another story’. But I tend to dismiss the effort I put in during those moment and the fact that I chose not to give up. I understand that there are moments when, indeed, I did not give my best shot. And it might be the case as of now. However, instead of adding them into the list of my disappointment, I need to consider it as a part of growth whereby I need to continuously harness and put extra effort in, if I wanted to progress at all.
To go back, if your past struggle which escorted you to where you are now cannot drive you to bounce back or help you to put your current struggle into perspective, recall those brief, momentary painful moments where you got to put up with whatever situation you are in. Realise how often this occurs on daily basis, realise how, if you put this in a time span, it equals to just the same amount of period you needed to undergo to thrive through a bigger, more complex issues.
And realise that these are, eventually, ephemeral in nature.
So, dear self,
At your own pace, let’s give your best shot in working on your “self-love” assignment.
