Love Yourself

"When you don't know yourself, you don't love yourself, you will fall for anything that sounds like love and feels like love" - Polaris  (YouTube video, called America's Daughters) 

Trying to rebuild your self-esteem back up after it's been shattered for quite some time is something that a lot of people have a difficult time with. "Just love yourself," is something easier said than done. You can have people tell you a million positive things about you, but that voice inside your head is telling you those people are lying. So how can we change things? How can we learn to love ourselves again? Well, lets think for a moment. It took years and years for us to listen and believe these negative things about ourselves. Either someone told us something negative (i.e. a parent said you weren't good enough, or a bully called you ugly, etc.) or you learned to tell yourself something negative (i.e. by either watching a parent, friend, someone on social media, etc.). We have to replace those negative messages with positive ones and tell ourselves them until we believe them just like we did with the negative ones. Positive affirmations are a great way to help replace those negative messages. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques can also help challenge those negative messages and help turn them into positive ones. A trained mental health professional can help you with these techniques.

Something you can do on your own though would be to look at positive and inspirational quotes. Some people like to write inspirational quotes around their mirrors so when they look at themselves every day they are always looking at those quotes. It doesn't have to be a mirror, it can be any place that you look at daily (i.e. planner, back of a door, calendar, etc.).

Also, remember to give yourself permission to love yourself. You're not conceited, cocky, or narcissistic for doing so. You are worthy of your own love. When you love and accept yourself, you will be able to listen to yourself, gain more self respect and learn how to set boundaries and walk away from those who are hurting you and are trying to bring you down.