Radical self-love
As humans, we have an incredible tendency to turn something wholesome into the most toxic propaganda. What once started as a way to bring our awareness to taking care of the number one, is now one of
the most capitalised industries.
It started as self-care, i.e. taking time out to take care of yourself and find your balance. But over time, as industries began noticing the limitless opportunities of cashing in on our desperate need to be fixed while being reluctant to face the truth, we’ve built a mega cash cow that feeds on our most blatant insecurities. I, too, fall victim to the perpetual illusion of fixing myself just a tad, not so much that I’ll dive deep into the wounds, but enough to plaster them up nice and pretty so that I retain the drive to keep fuelling the capitalistic machine that’s become of this world.
There’s a reason biohacks define the current state of our lives. We’d rather swallow litres of matcha (which you cannot convince me doesn’t taste like nothing but backyard grass) than come even remotely close to experiencing the bitterness of facing our past mistakes and taking accountability for our participation in finding ways to continuously add to our suffering. Because the reality is, at some point in our lives, we become the result of the choices we make, not the things that have happened to us. Healing and growth are conscious decisions, not something that randomly floats by and works its magic into us. At a certain point, we lose the privilege of using our traumas as excuses that keep fueling our bad decisions.
We’re preaching self-care like it’s the cure for everything. Take some time out, meditate and expand your mind. “You gotta love yourself first,” we paint on posters selling 24-karat gold face masks. But to love yourself means to face yourself in your entire existence. The good, the bad, and the worst.
Self-care, or self-love, doesn’t mean morning meditation or yoga. It means cutting out toxic relationships, calling yourself out on toxic behaviours and removing yourself from environments that serve as security blankets, but in reality do nothing more than encourage your lack of growth and feed the need to belong. Real, radical self-love will break you before it will heal you. And that’s only if you’re lucky enough to persevere.
Where’s the ‘self’ though?
Part of me really wishes self-love wasn’t something we’re so used to tying to how other people see us; I wish that it wasn’t something we have grown expecting to be handed or taught by another person. Why do we even call it ‘self-love’ when we’re not the ones giving it to ourselves? I wasted so many years of my life trying to let external elements determine my value. Whether it was a job or a relationship, or the attraction or admiration of other people, sometimes even complete strangers. I often wonder if there are people who are born with this self-love and confidence to just be themselves regardless of what anyone else thinks, or if we’re all just floating around hoping one day it’ll all fall into place.
And even when we stumble upon a person who embodies this idea, we’re offended by their ability to self-preserve. We envy their ability to draw clear boundaries and take their ability to walk away from environments that don’t serve them personally. We call them narcissists, we say they’re self-absorbed and lack awareness. And don’t get me wrong, many of them are - hello world leaders, modern ‘healers’ and Bali-based Norwegian shamans. But people who truly embody the idea of real, radical self-love only ever share one thing in common, and that’s their ability to remain unwavered. Their ability to call you out is rooted in their ability to call themselves out. It’s knowing when to say, I am a part of the problem, so whether I walk away or not, I am first going to address my participation in it. I would love to say that the relationships or friendships that didn’t work out for me were always someone else’s fault. But even in those toxic ones, I gotta admit, there was something for me to gain that made me stick around. Or else I would have walked away before it got toxic. Maybe it was an abandonment wound that they served as a plaster for, maybe it was my need to be perceived one way or another. Either way, I gained something, so I stayed while it served its purpose. It’s the lack of genuine self-love that makes us stick around way past expiry date, or even enter those relationships in the first place, not our wanting to do good for another person. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s the realest one I have ever tasted.
Being in a relationship where my basic needs weren’t being met was a conscious compromise. It was a blatant example of a lack of self-love and respect being accepted at the cost of companionship. Staying in a career that didn’t fulfil and drained me to my core wasn’t resilience or strength; it was prioritising how I am perceived in the world and wanting to appear as ‘successful’, even if it came at the cost of my own wellbeing. Toxic relationships don’t find me; I choose them. It’s not about being drawn to people who are broken or feeding myself off the idea of healing and fixing them. At my core, I am an avoidant. And dating people who are broken gives me the assurance that at some point, their inability to grow will break the relationship apart, and that’ll be my way out. Because the reality is, while I want love or companionship just as we all do, I am terrified of being truly seen and then abandoned, so it’s easier to keep paddling in shallow waters and running back to the shore when the water gets too muddy, than to one day find myself so far into the waters I may not be able to swim it back to the same, safe place. It didn’t start with me. It stemmed from a wound that was placed on me long before I knew what it was, but it is now my responsibility to deal with it, if I ever want to truly expect a different result.
To give yourself the freedom to explore without judgment is the first sure step towards radical self-love. Do I like everything I’m discovering about myself? Absolutely not. Some of it feels like a noose that keeps on drawing tighter around my neck each day. But what I am also discovering is that acceptance is the chair that’s resting below me. The more I deny it, the more I am kicking it away. Only when I stop resisting the discomfort of what these realisations mean do I feel the noose loosen up a bit, perhaps not completely, but enough to catch a breath while I reach for the chair.
To say that I don’t enjoy this process of acceptance is an enormous understatement. I think I’d rather lick an electric fence than do this most days, but I also realise that the only way out of a loop is to acknowledge its existence. And I’ll be damned if I find myself in 30 years from now still asking the same questions, blindly resisting the answer that’s sitting right in front of me.
So, if you ask me to define self-love - that’s my two cents on it.
The route towards it will look different for everyone. For me, it took leaving behind everything I knew and loved and venturing out onto a journey of perpetually making the same mistakes, expecting a different result until, thank fuck, I finally got sick and tired of it myself. This isn’t the path I recommend for anyone. It’s one that works for me because extremity is very tightly woven into the core of who I am. I have always been an all-or-nothing person, and for the most part, this approach serves me well, though perhaps, one day, I’ll come to accept that this too serves as a blanket for something I haven’t addressed. Ain’t self-discovery magical?
There is a limitless amount of tools that’ll guide you if you ever wish to embark on this painfully beautiful trip. Psychedelics, therapy, nature, meditation, movement… I don’t believe that any one of these will entirely fix you, but it’ll give you a helping hand. You may even enjoy a yoga retreat or an over-priced face mask along this journey, too, but please, for the love of denial, give yourself the freedom to find acceptance.
Till next rant,
Sara xo