Step 33 – There is Nothing Between Me and Me
I can truly say that I love myself. Or maybe even that I’m in love with myself. And before you think or say that I’m shallow or narcissistic (which completely missed my point), I’ll explain to you why loving yourself first should be your priority. My friend Michal once laughed at me that a title of my future book will be: “There is Nothing Between Me and Me”. Because this where I got with myself – I just FINALLY like myself a lot and fully accept myself (I wrote about it on Just Like NY just recently).
OMG… finally!!! I wake up and I smile to myself (maybe not every day, but most of the days). Even when I look like crap, I tell myself that tomorrow my face will change for the better (at least I hope for that). Even when I’m not satisfied with my body (around period time), I put my hand on my stomach saying: “You’ll be smaller one day”. Yes, I love myself. I watched Gary Vaynerchuk’s video recently (you can check him out, he cuts through the bullshit just the way I like it @garyvee) and he said the thing that is exactly in my head: “I love myself, but I love other people the same way”. It’s exactly what I think – my love for myself is not selfish, it’s not this kind of love that makes me think I’m the best of all. It actually means the opposite. Now, since I cut the bullshit about figuring out what to be like, how to look better, how to behave so that everyone likes me, I can finally focus on things that really matter to me.
When you start loving yourself, your life simply changes. You start seeing different things and look at other things differently. You stop being your own obsession, you stop being the center of your own world because you know that you’ll be just fine. You don’t fight your imperfections anymore and notice that life is about something else. It sounds like a paradox, but because you love yourself, you love others more. When you love yourself, you can give more to others – and this is exactly what I want to do in my life. Nothing (NOTHING) would make me happier than knowing that someone changed his/her opinion about themselves, their lives, that someone changed or decided to chase their dreams, because I inspired him/her to do so. Oh, I wish I had this knowledge 10 years ago… The only thing I can do now that it finally came to me, is to share what I’ve learned.
So do me a favor and when you see someone who is happy about themselves, don’t be sarcastic or mean, just be happy for that person. It takes a lot of work and courage to fully accept yourself. And it takes some guts not to worry about other people’s opinions about your choices, your life or your body. Don’t look towards what others do, don’t judge them; just shift your focus onto yourself first and do some work to like yourself more. The reward is greater than you think. And a new life for you is just the beginning.
