I have known and been discovering my link to my own self-love and how flawed it is. The foundation is built on something unstable and its caused instability in my love for myself. I have known that I tie my self-worth to things outside of myself and I can confidently name two of them. My productivity and the love my partner has for me.
This is an issue because without my partner and without a job in which I am actively contributing to society, I have no foundation for why or how to love myself.
Coincidentally enough, I am going through a loss of one; my partner, and this has compounded on the reality in which I have not been employed for over a year. This has been due to visa reasons as I’ve been living abroad the past year and a half, but nonetheless, I have been unemployed and now I am without my primary partner of 7 years.
So these two things that my love for myself are contingent on have fallen through. I am not being productive on a larger scale, and I am not being loved in a direct and obvious manner. In fact, I have been tricking myself into loving myself for quite some time. I took the easy route, in fact! This amazing person loves me? I must be lovable. I love myself!
This is flawed for so many reasons. I need my love for myself to be intrinsic and internally weaved. I have been weaving a web of self-love made of threads built out of plastic. The web I have in front of me that says I love myself has blinded me to the web I should have been weaving much deeper with a much more solid foundation.
So, I have this beautiful fabric in front of me that I began without the proper starting stitch, and I’m unsure if I need to destroy the brightly colored, incredibly inviting cloth in front of me or if I go through it to start deeper with the proper starting stitch.
At this point I don’t know if I’m weaving or crocheting, but either way, something faulty was built in instability, completely outside myself.
As though I am the woven doll with its strings attached to wooden paddles crossing above me that read “job” and “husband”. Well, I have neither of those things currently. The paddles have broken, and my strings have come loose. I am untethered and floating around in a nothingness that I feel for myself. It is not exactly hate, but it is something close to disgust or in the line of thinking that says I am pathetic. Do I pity myself? I don’t think so.
I do not want to be a marionet though. I really do not. I would rather bundle up all my strings and threads and cords, and keep them firmly inside my own heart. Part of me hopes that this new web forms a barrier around my heart, protecting it. That makes me laugh. It’s not healthy, but it seems safe to me in a way. It’s not though.
So then I cannot weave my web of self-love inside my own heart so as not to block it off. Is this something I do in my brain? Do I take all my neural pathways and stitch them together in ways that convince myself that I love myself? Is that the definition of delusion? Hmmm.
So, there is no “place” to weave what I wish to create, and there can be no visuals for this. It just is, and it just needs to be. Which is how I view love.
It just is or it is not. It is either there from the start or it never will be. You can kid yourself into it; I’ve done that. You can fabricate a version of it for yourself; I’ve also done this. But then it is not “real”. There is an instability to this love just like my web of plastic threads, this too is created synthetically.
I do not love myself and I’m not sure if I ever have. Does this mean that I cannot learn to love myself? Will the love I have for myself forever be fabricated in some sort of way, leaning toward delusion? Is delusion so wrong if it hurts no one but keeps me alive? Can one live inside of a deluded love for oneself in a way where the glass never breaks?
I want to do this. I want to weave a love for myself so strong that not even the planets in the sky could shake that core belief in me; I love myself.
So then what is my self-love based on, if anything? Is it just there or not? Because in here, it is not, but can that change? Can that transform and become something out of nothing? Energy cannot be created nor destroyed and so I must have to take the energy I have inside of myself that says you are pathetic and transform that into something beautiful…
I cannot base my self-love on who I am as a person. That is also unstable. I change every day! I grow from one moment to the next. So then, does that dictate that my self-love needs to be something that can transform with me as I go? What sort of thread do I need to buy in order to create this magic carpet of self-love that I can stand on and fly around with as I pivot from journey to journey in my life?
Or is the love I have for myself something that I need to be working on consciously in each moment? Do I add a new thread for every change? Every new direction? Each new personality I am imbibed with somehow? This would take a lifetime.
My love for myself cannot be something tangible. It needs to shed and rebirth itself every morning I wake up. It needs to change and adapt as I grow and assimilate into this life as myself in this human form. What is this thing that I wish to create? What tools do I need, and what materials should I gather?
I have no idea where to start. Not in creating this love for myself anyway. Now, I must unweave. This thing that I created based on a false premise. I am not lovable because I have evidence I am loved. I am not lovable because of what I am capable of and the choice I make to do these things inside of my capabilities, no. I am just lovable.
Do I need a reason for why I am lovable, or can I just be lovable? Will I be brought in front of a jury in which I need to present my opening statement on why we are here; because I love myself. But if I am in front of a jury, am I not committing perjury by stating such a thing in my opening statement? Who is this jury and why do I care what their verdict is on this?
Again, I am looking extrinsically and tying my strings to my external world.
I am the jury.
I am the judge.
My verdict is this…
I want to love myself. I deserve to love myself. I am going to attempt this until it sticks.
Maybe in trying, and in doing, and in being so stubborn about this, I will eventually love myself enough to see that things can go on around me; the world can keep on spinning, but I won’t be.
I will be standing there, on my vibrantly colored magic carpet that has the ability to transform as I do, and I will be loving myself enough.
Do you love yourself?
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